Kitty's Blog

Television

2011-09-18T16:39:00.000-05:00

Here's my rant on TV:

Question: Does our society reflect what TV is? or does TV reflect what society is. I believe it's both. I'm pretty sick about what is displayed on television. The more and more I think about it, the more it becomes disturbing. If you want a foreigner to know what Americans are all about, just watch prime time TV. There's always the crime dramas with cops and lawyers, and there are the medical dramas as well. But the influx of "reality" TV is horrific. Remember I'm a high school teacher, so I hear students talking about the up coming episode of Jersey Shore. Maybe that's the way they really live or want to live. Whatever it is it's sick. Do we really think it's ok to decieve people so that the other person won't find out that another person is sleeping with someone else because she's jealous he never notices her? I don't even know if I just made sense!!! But that's what I see on TV. Relationships that go nowhere, violence and perversions toward kids, depression, suicide, angry people, crime and death over foolish things. Greed/selfishness. It's the essence of evil and I believe the essence of the human soul. It's our nature to do these things. I've heard that one doesn't need to be taught to do wrong, one needs to be taught to do right. Doing the right thing is not hardly taught anymore and that's why TV reflects the "I can do whatever I want to, no matter who it hurts" attitude. "It's all about me, after all I'm worth it." It only ends up hurting the instigator but they usually end up blaming someone else. I wonder what the people on reality TV shows will think about themselves 20 years from now and what their children will think. Embarrassment? "Way to go Mom!"

I do not like the so called ABC Family channel. I don't think it's very family oriented: Pretty Little Liars; The Lying Game; Secret Life of an American Teenager, 10 Things I Hate About You; Greek...you realize these are soap operas for teenagers, right? OH! BTW: Most of the daytime soaps are off the air already. You know why, right? There's enough drama during the evening hours to make up for it a hundred fold!!!

So why do we thrive or get a kick out of watching a house full of people try their very best to be the very worst so they can win money? and then on the side if they hook up with one of the other people, it's a bonus! Then we applaud!!

I just finished watching Evan Almighty which is an ok movie. The sentiment behind the plot is good but it misses the mark totally. Jesus. According to the movie all you need to do to change the world is build an ARK or act of random kindess. I'm definitely not knocking that, but what happened to knowing you aren't perfect and knowing the person who is and who died for you so that you may become perfect in the eyes of God? It's a daily struggle of doing what we want versus doing what God wants us to do. Believe me it's a daily struggle for me. I have that selfish nature too! Ask my husband!

I guess my point behind all of this is this: be careful what you allow into your mind if you truly believe in God and Jesus the Savior because we tend to fall into the trap of society which can be subtle and then again it's not. There are few and far between who distinguish the difference between what God's society should be like and the world's view. We are in the minority and even the minority has difficulty with what God wants.

Spring Break and Back to Work

2011-03-23T21:44:00.003-05:00

Well, JR will officially be 8 weeks tomorrow. It doesn't sound like a long time but in a way it is. I started back to work Monday and yes I cried when I dropped JR off at the daycare and all the way to work. It was not my greatest moment. Tuesday I cried halfway to work and then today I thought I'd be ok...nope...the waterworks turned on again! The good thing about school is that it is non stop and so I almost don't have time to think of my sweet baby, until a student asks about him. :D Jason picked him up from daycare today. First time! I think this will be a regular thing on Wednesdays seeing that I have Key Club meetings after school.

OH!!! The automatic rocker for JR came in today. Hallelujah! It was awesome. He seemed pretty content and Jason and I both could get some things done at the same time!!! A miracle! Thanks Jason's parents! (Mom and Dad #2)

Well the last week with JR was Spring Break so we thought it would be a good idea to load everything in the Chevy Equinox including the backyard (it seemed) and head to NWArkansas to show off baby to Aunts, Uncles and cousins who hadn't met him yet! Wow what an undertaking and we didn't forget to pack the baby! We also brought the dogs! Spent good quality time with grandparents. Dad and I went to see the movie Rango. So funny!!

That Sunday we had a mega party at Mom's celebrating JR's entrance into the world, Emma's 6th birthday (I can't believe it!) and Patrick's homecoming from Afghanistan!!! There were a ton of people there. It was fun but we were glad to relax the next couple of days.

Jason's Mom had Wednesday and Saturday off from work so that's when we went over to McAlester, OK for visiting with other grandparents. About 30 minutes from the house, my suitcase (which was strapped to the top of the car because there wasn't any room inside :) somehow came free and flew off the top into the median. I was driving so I sorta freaked out but managed to pull over. Jason got out and checked his suitcase and got back in the car. At the same time I looked in the rearview mirror and a white vehicle had pulled over in the median and I thought the people were picking it up to bring it to us. I was so relieved but then that relief turned to utter devestation when I watched them take my suitcase and do a u-turn and head in the opposite direction. Some jerk stole my luggage!!! WHILE WE WERE WATCHING!!! I couldn't believe it. If I was in a more calm state I would have turned around and chased him (or her, I assume it was a him).

We drove up and down Hwy 69, just in case what we saw wasn't really what we saw happen. No luggage. I couldn't drive I was so upset and crying, so Jason drove to McAlester. Jason's Mom called the nearest town's police department, since that was the direction the jerks were headed. The things in my suitcase that I was most upset about losing was a diamond necklace my Mom gave me; earrings I bought in Germany and perfume I bought there as well. I had a pair of perscription glasses too. I have since moved on but am saddened by how desparate people are. I can't replace some of those things but we were able to claim it on our insurance, so I will get some money back to replace some clothes, glasses, the earrings and perfume among other things.

God is good though, the incident could have been much worse. The luggage could have hit another car and seriously done some damage. I'm blessed to have the brightest jewel in the world that wasn't in my suitcase...my sweet baby and husband. What more can I say?

Road Trip

2011-03-10T13:12:00.003-06:00

Yup! We're going on our first major road trip with JR tomorrow! Spring Break is upon us and we're headed to NWArk to visit grandparents, of course, but also Aunts, Uncles and cousins he hasn't met yet! It will be an adventure, especially since we're bringing the dogs too! Gah! What usually takes us around 4 hours may take longer. It will be fun though! Jason loves going to NWArk, but this trip will be more exciting for him because he gets to really break in the new Equinox! He's so excited.

My quandry (it's not really a quandry, just amusing, really) is what to pack for baby. Not necessarily what to pack but which suitcase I should take for him! I'm thinking the medium size and Jason and I can share our biggest suitcase. Not only babies are expensive, but they require a LOT of stuff and I'd rather pack more than I need. However, even though we are going to Arkansas, I guess we can buy something if we need it. ;-)

Some things I will point out that I have learned on becoming a new mommy (still can't get over THAT title):

Babies are expensive...I knew this going in...but DANG, the health insurance alone!
Sacrificing sleep is worth it and not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Don't get me wrong! I would love to sleep for more than 3 hours at this point!
Getting the housework done is for the birds.
I'm ready to go on a date with my husband...alone!
Random smiles from JR make my day.
I can't remember all the words to all the traditional lullabys, so I make them up.
A shower is heaven.
I'm ready to go back to school. I miss my other "kids," but ask me how I'm doing on the 21st of March, the day I go back to work. :-\
I went on a vigorous walk yesterday and I am totally out of shape!!!
I sway standing up and I'm not holding a baby.
I have caught up on watching House, NCIS and Law & Order...ready to go see a movie!
Proud of JR when he toots!

Ok...other things happening besides baby stuff.

We're looking at reinsulating our attic. It is desparate to have more insulation which will cut our electricity bill down. Yay! Hopefully in the next couple of weeks that will happen.

On March 25th, my date with Jason will happen. We are going down to Thackerville to Winstar Casino to see one of my favorite singers! Harry Connick, Jr.! YES!! Jason was the one who mentioned it to me. Awwww.... and Aunt Ruth will be taking care of JR. Yippee!! Thanks, Auntie!

We're also looking at taking a trip to Las Vegas in July. Nonnie (my mom) will probably be taking care of JR for us. Thanks, Nonnie!

Not much else, except taking care of the babe. It's tough work, but it's worth it. Nothing too exciting since all I'm doing is feeding, rocking him and trying to get him to sleep at night! I'm reading some books to him too and having tummy time to strengthen muscles (he's a squirmer!). I haven't started him on the piano....yet!

He's 26 days old...

2011-02-22T12:49:00.005-06:00

...and I can't believe it! He is growing fast. I was just looking at newborn pictures and him now. Unbelievable! No huge milestones except giving him a bath. The first time was scary...Jason was in charge of not letting him slip out of the tub and I tried to figure out how to wash JR. I gave him a bath today by myself. I was a little more confident today and it turned out good. Plus he smells wonderful after a bath. I could sniff his hair all day. He wasn't too keen on the bath though. I'm sure that will change later on. I did get a fountain display while bathing him. :D

A friend came by last Sunday to take professional pictures of JR and I got a sneak peak this past weekend. I'll show you one. It's not even the cutest:

Hopefully I'll get out the birth announcements soon!

Saturday we had a lot of visitors! Jason's parents came by on their way to see Ruth and Cliff (sis-in-law). Next was Jennie and Ben from Waco! They came bearing gifts and lots of them! I'm so excited about the books! I haven't even gone through the clothes yet! I was so proud of the dogs. Ben is almost four and they were wonderful with him! He played outside with them by himself! The dogs have definitely been more socialized because of people coming by to see JR. However they were not fond of the cable guy to hook up our Internet. Dang!

Jennie and Ben spent the night so they wouldn't have to drive 8 hours in one day just to see us! The next bunch of guests were Mary Beth, Nate and Jen! That was fun too! We all went to Turner Falls to walk around and enjoy the beautiful weather. We also stopped for fried pies...YUMMY!

I guess the other major milestone is that Jason changed his first diaper that day, and apparently it was a doozie! Hey, if you're gonna dive in, go in all the way! Jason is helping out more and more and I appreciate it so much! Now if I can get him to voluntarly wake up in the middle of the night with JR, THAT would be amazing!!

Blogging About Baby

2011-02-17T09:22:00.005-06:00

I know, right! I'm actually going to blog! I do have a worthy subject...my wee babe. :D

So James Ryan made his appearance on Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 9:08pm after an hour of pushing. It didn't seem that long, though. 8lbs 8 oz and 21 inches long! Observations that I remember:

I thought my eyeballs were going to pop out and my teeth were going to shatter.
Mom said she'd never seen me get so red in the face.
The hour before I started pushing was the longest in my life.
I missed the episode of The Office with Ricky Garvis.
Dr. Melton said I was a real trooper.
He also said that JR was a 'juicy baby'; meaning he had fluid in his lungs.
The epidural was wonderful; I don't think I could have done it without it...seriously!
I felt a HUGE relief after delivering the baby and the placenta (which was sorta cool btw).
It seemed to take forever for the Dr. and intern? to stitch up my tearing.
Dr. Melton asked if I had DB = dead butt; this was to see if I could lift myself up with my legs. I did not have DB. LOL!

All in all the experience was totally amazing. Jason cut the umbilical cord and did a great job encouraging me. Mom was there too. So was my Dad. (He had to stay waaaay behind me, though!)

Staying at the hospital was tough. I wanted to come home but you have to stay there for 24 hours after delivery. We stayed longer just because JR was born so late at night.

I had every intention on breastfeeding JR but it didn't work out. I had everything too. Lanolin, breast pump (for going back to work), nursing pads, storage bags for extra milk...everything! I didn't think JR had a problem with latching on at first but I just don't think I was producing enough. He's very demanding. I know that the milk takes time to come in but we had to supplement his 'feeding' while in the hospital. It devestated me. Here I am ready to be supermom and I can't even feed my child like I thought I would be able to. This equals lots of crying and guilt. For two weeks it was like that. I admit I was really depressed. I'm sure I was freaking out Jason. Thank goodness my Mom was there for over a week. She really helped us out in soooo many ways. Thank you MOM! After Mom left, I thought the feedings were getting better but JR was latching on wrong and I couldn't get him to correct it. I still had to supplement. (That was a trial and error thing...I couldn't figure out why he was crying so much after he breastfed!!) Again the guilt. I talked to some friends who encouraged me to go either way and to remind me that even if JR's bottlefed he will be ok. I was bottlefed and I'm ok! :)

Making the decision to stop was really really hard. But I did and now we are much happier and I'm enjoying being a mommy a whole lot more!!! I haven't cried once since we started bottle feeding!!! Thanks to those for all the encouragement and support!! I will definitely try breastfeeding the next addition (whenever that will be) but I will not put so much pressure on myself like I did this time to be supermom. I will leave that to my sister-in-law, Mandy, who is truly a SUPER MOM!!! BTW, we went to the doctor to get him weighed yesterday and he's already 10lbs. :D

JR and I have been getting out of the house, which has been great! I have even left him alone with Jason, our future daycare ladies and the nursery at church! I want my son to love me and run to me when he needs me (or not) but I don't want to be a hovering momma who can't let go!

What else...the dogs have been great. It was dicey at first. I think they saw JR as a squeaky toy and came to investigate every time he made a sound. Now that they have his many scents XD; they love him and even lay down or leave the room when he starts to cry. They are very sweet to him.

And the adventure continues.....!!!! Will try to update every once in a while!!!

2 Months Worth...

2009-09-18T22:28:00.003-05:00

No, I'm not going to write two months worth of stuff that's been going on...I don't have that kind of time. I will just do the highlights.

We started school! Yeah, August 10th. Soooooo early! So far so good. We've hit a few bumps in the road but will get to that later.

House is in good shape. We've FINALLY hung up ALL the framed pictures and it's amazing what the room looks like with stuff on the walls. It looks good. Front flowerbed is about to burst with mums...can't wait to see all the colors!

Alex and Emma's doctors have finally come up with a definite diagnosis, so we've been dealing with that. Pray for our family!!

Jason and I have decided on a church to call home; First Baptist Church of Sulphur.

Have had lots of family come visit us, so I can play hostess! and I LOVE doing it! Keep 'em coming!

So here's how this week has gone:

Sunday afternoon, Patrick called with the news he's been called up for a year to go to Afghanistan probably around April or May. He starts his training in January.

Monday a teacher resigned at the high school

Tuesday I hosted a Pampered Chef Party with sister-in-law Ruth as the consultant. Good times!

Wednesday I started teaching piano lessons...whew! I got to study up on my technique and theory!!

Thursday I went to a toe party with some teacher friends and came home with cute toes AND the biggest headache I have ever had in my life...not good. Ironically I slept soundly.

Today the US History teacher next door to me passed away this morning. Earl Wilson. He also helped coach track, was well loved and ALWAYS greeted me with a smile on his face and laughter when he talked. Please pray for his family. He was taking a stress test yesterday and had a stroke. I believe he was in his 50's. It's hard to see students in pain over that kind of loss. Also our football team lost tonight. 7-14

All I can say is that life is short so don't waste time on petty things. Watch your words, because you may regret them later. Tell your friends and loved ones you love and care for them.

Needless to say it has been a stressful and long week. We can't be happy all the time but we can be joyful because of Who has blessed us and given us grace to live through each day.

Cheers, love and hugs to all,
Jess

Las Vegas Hoopla

2009-07-14T11:16:00.013-05:00

Time to tell most of what happened in Vegas:

First we left on Friday, July 3 to go visit some of Jason's friends and have a BBQ. Good stuff. Then we drove to NWArk to visit my family. We got there about 10:30 and immediately decided that Pat and I would go get fireworks. We got a stash and shot them off until about 1am in the morning (late for me). Fun times!! 4th of July we went to the Rodeo of the Ozarks parade 1) because it was cool (literally and figuratively) and 2) because Alex and Emma were in it! The rode in the back of Drew's pickup and waved to the crowd with the Rounders, girls and their horses.

Came home and it started raining so we took naps. Yummy.

That evening we went to the Rodeo of the Ozarks and watched. The nieces were featured with the Rounders, who have a special program for disabled children. So sweet. We finished the night at the rodeo with fireworks and a round of God Bless America with Drew singing at the top of his lungs!! (me too but not so loud).

Alex and Emma waving to the crowd.

Dad with Alex

Drew with Emma

Rodeoing in the Ozarks

Sunday we went to church and then hung out with Dad and watched Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 3D. Cool.

Dad grilled some chicken and, as always, it was terrific!!!

Monday we got up and did all our laundry so we would have enough clothes to last us til Friday and then we headed for the OKC airport. Got there in plenty of time, flight was delayed and then once we were in the air, headed to Denver, no, I mean Colorado Springs, no I mean Denver. Because of thunderstorms we circled around Denver for about 30 minutes and then were diverted to COS because we were running out of fuel. Immediately after we landed we were told we could go back to Denver...not until I use the bathroom, mister!! It was a dire situation for me and several other people.

We got back into the air and landed in Denver with no other problems except that we missed our flight to Las Vegas so we high tailed it to the gate with the only other flight out to LV and was able to hop aboard. Needless to say that we were bushed by the time we crashed at our hotel. The Luxor, by the way...yeah, the pyramid.

A view from our room at the Luxor
(we weren't actually in the pyramid which was good because of the height issue.)

Hoover Dam

Bridge at the Hoover Dam being built to divert heavy truck traffic.
(Saw a Modern Marvels special on this...way cool.)

Typical south Nevada and Arizona scenery.

...and of course, the strip...

Monday we took a day trip to Laughlin, NV. Stops on the way included Hoover Dam and a rinkydink roadside souviner shop but it was fun. The mountains are awesome and I tried to picture the first people out there and how they determined why they wanted to live there. There isn't ANYTHING out there in the rocky desert!

Laughlin, NV was nice. It was on the Colorado River (beautiful), but it was dang hot. I could feel the tops of my toes cooking. We played the slots with about $10 each and Jason got a jackpot of about $100. Awesome! So we went across the street to the outlet shops and did some shopping!

Next day we toured the strip via monorail and scoped out where we would eat that night near the Ka Theater (Cirque de Soilel). We ate Asian food and the show was AWESOME!!!!! I won't even describe it because I can't...awesome acrobatics, martial arts, music and the storyline was good too.

Thursday we got up and ate breakfast, came back to the room and slept, got up to eat lunch and came back to the room and chilled and the went to supper and toured the strip at night. Very cool. We saw the Bellagio fountains and the Mirage's volcano and the gondolas at the Venetian. Don't forget about the Forum Shops at Ceasars Palace...incredible!!!!

Friday, we pretty much got up, got McDonald's and headed for the airport with no incidents!!! Yay! Got home about midnight and now it's back to reality....and the yard...which mocks us and says..."yes, you must mow me every week!! MWWWHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!!" Dang.

For more pictures...I will be uploading them to my Facebook account.

Quick note...on grass...

2009-07-02T19:30:00.005-05:00

Just a quick observation...today we (and when I say we, I mean Jason) mowed the grass for the first time since our move in date. I found it very satisfying actually. Yes it was at 7am in the morning and it was still warm but I felt like we accomplished something. (I raked grass and other debris).

I used to HATE...no hate is not the right word...DESPISE it when Mom would come in early Saturday morning and say something like "lawn day" or "get up, get up, we need to do some chores!" I don't even know how to describe the irritation in my being when I heard that. Before Drew and Pat were old enough, I had to mow the lawn. We always had lawn mower issues...the issue being there was always something wrong with them. They would not start, flat tire...whatever... We also had a variety of lawn mowers too. Push and riding. I liked the riding...no biggie...except when I mowed under the apple tree. It would scrape my back while I was trying to duck underneath the low hanging limbs...those things were like steel with pointy objects!!! The push mowers were awful. We had a huge yard and mowing would take forEVer!!! And not to mention I get blisters very easily and I would have blisters from holding down the little bar to keep the mower going. (What can I say, I have delicate skin).

So all that complaint to say, I never appreciated the work that was involved and the outcome of having a pretty yard. I hated it then, and not lovin it now, but the satisfaction of saying, "look at my yard! I did that (or my husband did that)." It is pretty darn cool.

More House Pictures

2009-06-25T15:52:00.008-05:00

...and, no, not as in that TV show doctor, although I do watch it sometimes.

Spare bedroom

Office

Master bath

Back deck

Cute little shed (matches the house)

Front of home (obviously)

Front door

A Home with a Backyard :)

2009-06-25T08:17:00.011-05:00

Jason making a hole for our mailbox!!!

*Sigh* It's so nice to have a home with a backyard. Jason and I were so fortunate to find a house in our price range, rennovated so we didn't have to do much of anything, and lo and behold by some miracle most, if not all, our furnishings and accessories matches the paint scheme of the house and decor in the bathroom. Girls you know what I'm talking about, I think guys could care less. Jason's mom came down last Saturday and spent that day and Sunday with us. Then my mom came Sunday afternoon to help with the decorating. She's a task master...thank goodness for her help otherwise I'd be sitting on the couch not wanting to touch another box or hang another curtain!!!

Several things we did...organize stuff, hang pictures, hang curtains and plant flowers, oh! and took A LOT of boxes to the dumpster.

We hung a lot of curtains and had some mini crises over it. It was imparitive to have curtains in the eastern most rooms because that's where all the light comes in in the morning thus heating up the rooms like an oven. They also are the furthest from the AC unit therefore taking longer to cool down. Our first major investment into "fixing" the house will probably come in the fall when we have to have blown insulation in our attic, wrap the air ducts with insulation and put in two whirlybirds on top of the house so the ventilation will be better. Ahhh, the things we learn when owning a house. I can't wait for our first electric bill. I think we will have to sit down to open it. Our house payment is much lower than what our apartment rent was, but I have a feeling that other bills and "house projects" such as the attic will help offset the savings. That's ok! We don't have to drive 35 minutes one way to work. It's more like 5 minutes!!! WOOT WOOT!

Curtain Mishap Story: So we had to drive to Ardmore to pick up a few things and get some pictures framed that we've been waiting to do for a LONG time...these are things you can't do in Sulphur (or haven't looked yet). The Wal-Mart in Sulphur is very small and doesn't carry enough stock and variety. So on to the slightly better Wal-Mart in Ardmore. We found more curtains that were PERFECT for the living room and dining room and extras for the two small bedrooms. When we got home, Mom was like, "Let's do this thing!" So I'm measuring and drilling holes to anchor the screws and my arm is getting tired. Ok, we got the brackets for the rod in place, now all we got to do is hang the rod. Whoops! The brackets are spaced too far apart and the rod won't reach. There was a small debate on getting a longer rod or just redrilling holes for the brackets closer so the rod can reach. We chose the latter. Mom gave some good advice...if you mess up something, it can be fixed. Fortunately I had some spackeling and filled the holes but haven't painted over them yet. Ok...so on to the new holes to drill for anchoring the screws. Remember my arm is tired? Well I had the drill at a wierd angle and was pushing probably too hard and I broke my drill bit. I was standing on the bench with a horrid look on my face and Mom is like: "It's allright, it's allright, we can fix it!" So after a taking a mental and physical break we fixed it. The curtains in the living room are beautiful. And of course the last set of curtains we hung over the doors to the deck were the best because we were pros by that time.

Some Pics:

Living Room Curtains (apply mishap story)

Looking into kitchen from living room

Dining area

Pros and Cons about living in a small town:

Con: It's small...I'm definitely used to a bigger city with all amenities...such as a Target...I miss Target AND Bed Bath and Beyond.

Pro: People are soooo much more friendly here!! The State Farm lady alone sold me on living in a small town. Others in our house hunting/closing have reaffirmed that.

Con or Pro, you decide: I think in the week and a half we've been here we've seen at least 20 of our students.

Pro: Commute is awesome.

Pro: The environment is awesome. It's not flat in Sulphur. It's hilly and has a wonderful National Park with hiking trails. Biking could be a problem...maybe. Two nice lakes that we've found so far. It's got a lot of trees too.

Con: The name Sulphur... There's a reason for it though. It's because of the sulphur springs (which used to be the city's name). I would have voted to change the name back to Sulphur Springs but apparently the towns folk didn't approve. Yes, it does stink in some areas. Particularly at the sulphur spring near downtown. Too bad the city wasn't named Siloam or Hot Springs...oh well!!!

Pro and Con: Word gets around...everybody doesn't know everybody, but it sure is close. A neighbor a few houses down from us knew we were teachers when we told him. Scary!!

So that's all I'm going to say about that, except that having a home with a backyard is sublime. However, I wish I could enjoy being outdoors without sweating and slapping misquitos. I will say that my backyard is perfect for having a sprinkler so little girls and boys can come over and play!!!

Living the dream!!!

2009-06-16T07:42:00.007-05:00

Well folks...it's official...we've finally moved in to a house. YAY!!!!!! It has been a crazy mess and apparently it's still not over...joy!! Here's how it went down:

We were originally supposed to close on Friday, June 12 at 1pm. Ok. No problem...we were ready. Then a few phone calls and emails later, they called back and said we needed to close on June 17th. (they being the bank) Uh, noooooo....the bank said we could go ahead and close that Friday plus we had to move out of our apartment that weekend! So we sent the bank scrambling and they were able to keep the original closing date. So we go to close and it takes the sellers about 2 seconds to sign their paperwork...we walk in and there's a stack a mile high of what I'm only assuming what we should read and sign and initial...blah, blah, blah... First things first, however, the closing costs. We were quoted a cost and were prepared for that but when she showed us the actual cost it was almost $1,000 more. WHAT!!!! so needless to say we juggled some numbers to bring it down and were calling bank people left and right saying "what the heck?" Well after we did the juggling, "they" said "they" have to redo the paperwork and won't be able to have it ready until Monday. Ok. Monday rolls around and "they" call back and said it won't be until this Wednesday at 10am that the papers will be ready. It better be because the locked in interest rate expires that day!!! And boy did we get a good one!

So closing has been a nightmare, moving was a nightmare...we had wonderful people helping us, but with Jason working half a day and me doing other things, we didn't get everything packed the way I wanted to...that's ok! It worked out and we are moved and it is awesome!!! The house is a mess of course but we now have cable and internet so we're good to go. (Got that yesterday!) I've got the kitchen the way I want it...and the cabinet space is to die for!!! (Probably not but it is WAY better than what we had). ALSO! I now have a pantry for food to be placed in. In the apartment, there was nothing. I had to buy shelves to put the food on and ran out of space so much that it was spilling out to the ground... That's in the past, though!!! Speaking of pantries. I already have a house story.

Yesterday I was rearranging furniture in the guest bedroom and heard a noise and I thought oh, it might be a cockroach or something...I went to the kitchen with the flyswatter and then went to the pantry where I saw some previous movement. Opened the door and a MOUSE jumped out and attacked me!!!! Ok, well, it didn't attack me, it actually ran in one direction and I shouted and ran in the other direction. So I immediately went to Wal-Mart and bought two different mouse traps and some roach baits (you never know). The first mouse trap I used was not the traditional trap but it did snap and sort of hid the mouse once trapped. Cool, I wouldn't have to look at the poor thing when disposing of it. I set two of them using peanut butter as bait, stepped back and watched. Not a minute later Squeaky came up to the trap and stood there. I couldn't tell if he was debating whether or not to get the PB or he was actually eating it off the trap...I was thinking to my self, "Ok, any second, it's going to snap." It never did...so I checked both traps and Squeaky swiped all the PB off the traps without them going off!! Son of a gun!!! On to trap two! It was a glue trap with "professional strength" glue for catching mice. Is there a semi-pro or just regular folks mouse glue I haven't heard of? Anyway, I stuck a bit of PB on the sticky trap and set it down...not a minute later did Squeaky try it and got stuck! I was watching and immediately felt awful. He was desperately trying to get away and squeaking at the same time. I kept on yelling "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!!!" but that didn't really sooth him. So that was yesterday, and the mouse is still alive but stuck and I'm waiting for it to die. I'm afraid if I put it outside, something is going to try to get it and get stuck as well (remember the professional strength glue). So it's still in my kitchen and I check the mouse every once in awhile for breathing. That's my first major house story! I'm sure many more are to come as a houseowner. We're living the dream, people!!!

If ya'll would like our new address, please email me! Hopefully we'll get our new mailbox put up today (the previous owners didn't have one!!!)

Cheers!
Jessica

Well that was dumb: part II

2009-06-09T09:44:00.003-05:00

Well, yes I did something dumb...again...no TMI though.

Every spring/summer I look forward to the warmth and being outside. I love it!!! This past weekend Jason and I went to Comanche for Jason's Mom's birthday. Ruth had the boys and so it was a big get together. Devon and Bryce (nephews) had each double header baseball games that Saturday starting at 9am. Well we didn't get there until 9:45 but Bryce hadn't finished his first game so we all cheered, etc.... I wore a shirt with no sleeves and long pants (I thought we would be going out that night). Can you guess where this is heading? Well double headers mean long games and I stayed out in the sun way too long. Was there an offer of sunscreen? Yes...and I put some on my forearms to even out the farmer's tan I was already getting from riding my bike. But I didn't put any on my upper arms. That's where the dumb comes in....Ruth and Cliff were like, you definitely need to sit in the shade, now!! I said ok. I did and so did Jason. Now we both look like Lobster man and woman from Mars. Jason's face is completely red except where his cool looking sunglasses were on his face. The upper portion of my upper arms have tiny blisters on it. Every so often I'm putting Ocean Potion on for soothing purposes.

I texted Ruth to never let me say no to sunscreen. You'd think I'd learn from all the other bad experiences I've had...but noooooooooooo!

The other thing was the wind at the ball field. It was ridiculously crazy!!! The bad thing was the wind was blowing in our faces across the ball field and dust and dirt were flying in our faces. I brought a towel to sit on but I used it to shield my face. It didn't work that well. When I cleaned my face with wet naps there was dust all over...it looked like I had washed off all my makeup...I didn't even have any on!! When we finally got home after 6 hours at the ball field, I was cleaning out my ears with q-tips and in my right ear was literally tons of fine dirt in there. It was so gross!

Anyway...there's another dumb story and I this time I'm paying for it with pain. Stay tuned I'm sure there will be another dumb story coming up soon.

In other news....I've been packing up a storm here in the apartment anticipating the move this weekend. I'm excited and for some reason I like packing. I don't know why but I do... It's because I love organizing, I think. When I was packing my precious pottery, I was reminded of the good old days at the museum in the collections packing stuff up... aahhhh the memories...

June 12th is our closing date, which I now realize is the anniversary of the day I moved into my first apartment in Waco as an independant career girl!! Cool!

Love to all!!!

Well, that was dumb...

2009-06-01T08:39:00.005-05:00

Have you ever said that to yourself? I did a couple of weeks ago and I thought it was so funny that I had to share... Sorry if it's TMI!!!!

So, Jason was running errands or something...he wasn't in the apartment. So I was like, great I can go to the bathroom without having to close the door. *ahh, the little things* The only problem was where I chose to do that. The "guest" bathroom is in the main hallway of the apartment. From inside the bathroom you can see the living room and entryway door. So while I'm "in the moment" I look out the bathroom doorway and see that I have conveniently left the blinds to the windows in the living room open. How unfortunate for the persons who walk by and peek in!!! So, I'm thinking to myself, well, that was dumb...

Fortunately for me AND others...no one walked by ;-)

Movie Reviews

2009-05-28T21:09:00.004-05:00

Just thought I would give you the low down on some movies we have recently viewed:

Wolverine: LOVE IT!!! It was a good storyline, (although it didn't follow exactly the original comic book story). It was great and I love Ryan Reynolds...he's so funny. Gambit was great although Jason and I both thought he should have been in there longer... And of course Hugh Jackman...what female doesn't like watching him run around buck naked for several minutes??!!?!!

Terminator Salvation: It was interesting. I did like it but it wasn't what I thought it would be. I don't know...we just watched it and I may have to let it sink in. Good effects though!

Star Trek: I saved the best for last!!!! OMG!! It was spectacular! The characters matched the original characters so well, but those who aren't Trekkies...you didn't need to know that. The plot was good and the fact that the original Spock was in it was awesome. The special effects and humor was great!!! HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Will be viewing Transformers and Harry Potter later this summer and will let you know what I think. I will probably view Angels & Demons just because I'd like to see the movie version of the book (which I thought was way better than the DiVinci Code despite all the hoopla).

Be on the look out for a trailer for the movie 9 which will be coming out 09-09-09 (go figure). It's gonna be awesome, especially since the trailer has Coheed & Cambria's Welcome Home song in it!!! Check it out here!!!!

Time for an update!

2009-05-26T16:16:00.000-05:00

Well, well, well...look who it is!!! Long time no see!! I know, I know (as she grins sheepishly). There has been a whole bunch of stuff going on... and it's been exciting!

Nummer eins!!!! SCHOOL IS OUT!!!!!! YIP YIP YIPEEEEEE!!!

That has been a major thing in my life and now it's over!! Kids' last day was last Tuesday and the rest of the week was just cleaning up and getting ready for next year. I know it's crazy but I'm already looking forward to when school starts and getting to know the kids and them getting to know all the knowledge that I will bestow upon them... sounds good right?!!! :D I really do love teaching and I really do love having a break because that gives me time to mentally regroup and get stuff done that I haven't been able to while at work, which brings be to nummer zwei!!!

House Stuff!!

Yes...we are still in the middle of it. The house inspection is tomorrow at 2pm and then we will be done on our end. The appraisal has been ordered and the title/abstract thing is on the seller's end. I hope we will be able to move around the second week of June. (Cross your fingers)

These are the things I'm excited about in my (our) new house:

gardening
grilling
lots of kitchen space
a pantry
doggie?
a yard
no neighbors above us
state park with lake just to the south of us
NO COMMUTE to WORK!!!

Other stuff...getting a badly needed haircut tomorrow, dentist in a few weeks, and getting ready for a big trip next year.

I've been put in charge of arranging our 2010 family trip to Germany and Austria since I'm the one that can speak a little Deutsch. I've got it pretty much figured out with packet included. Our major stops include: Berlin, Cologne, Munich and Vienna with day trips from those major cities like Postdam, Dachau, Salzburg, Neuschwanstein castle and so on.... If anybody's interested in the trip let me know and I can give you a rough estimate. We're looking at going in July 2010 around the 8th coming back the 24th. Me and organizing go hand in hand so I've got the trip color coded.

What else...Memorial Day weekend we went to Norman, OK to see the last of Jason's kids graduate when he taught at Norman High School. It was really special...read his blog to find out more information. Then we went to OKC to drop off Ruth's phone she left at our house for a week!!! Then we went to Jason's parents and chilled until yesterday when we came back. I have mosquito bites (but no ticks, thank goodness)!

I had my annual physical - yippee :( Don't worry...I'm good to go. The last time I was at the doctor's office was my last physical last year...I just don't like doctors groping me.

That's about it! I know my last blog was a major downer but I'm good! and very excited about this summer!

And the Countdown Begins...

2009-04-15T19:15:00.005-05:00

...until summer break? or to insanity?

Author's note: Don't read too much into this...these are just thoughts that need to come out. Nothing to be worried about... it's life, it happens.

We are on the downhill slide as far as school is concerned and I have nothing to write about. Yeah, the house...whoopie... it's still not finalized yet. I feel like pulling my hair out. Nothing is being done. What needs to be done? I feel all the weight on me...for some reason. No one is saying anything about it.

I feel like crying for some reason...don't know why...I'm blessed with everything I need.

I feel very fat and unattractive... no one is interested in this fact...everyone else feels this way, right?

I need to study for this stupid test I'm supposed to take on Saturday.

I keep forgetting to pay a bill...it's not much money but I can't get home in time to run it to the office.

I, I, I, me, me, me...I feel selfish.

I think people are stupid sometimes...they like to complain about everything and then offer no solutions to the problem.

What's up with the pirate thing out of Somalia? I can think of a few things to fix that! non-negotiable.

I got to see my family last weekend and watch my brother take a new life journey. Yay, Pat!! I love my family!

It's hard for me to do anything once I get home...literally...I want to do nothing...that's why I'm fat.

I don't have a "hormonal imbalance" right now...

I have no girlfriends my age here.

I'm lazy.

I'm the problem.

I have to be the solution.

I am normal.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm probably depressed. I teach psychology, I should know. The worst thing is that I know I am and can't seem to want to get out of it. I mean I do, but don't...does that make sense? It seems like too much work. Why am I depressed? I need to find out so I can work out the issues...did I just teach on this today? Yes. Practice what I teach? Writing about it helps...I can reread it and try to look at it from another perspective.

I could say I'm depressed because:

Pat's being deployed again
the state of our youth is deplorable because their parents are deplorable...
economy sucks and so does my investments
I'm depressed...wow...how depressing!

So the psychological thing to do is turn those things around:

Pat is being deployed to a now safer Iraq?
Not all the youth are corrupt but are exemplary...I should know...some of them are in my classes.
I'm a history teacher, the economy will turn around again...it always does.
Hmmm....depressed because I'm depressed...don't see how I can make that positive!

"How do you feel now?"...Sigmund Freud would ask..."better," I would reply.

It's been awhile.

2009-02-28T14:05:00.010-06:00

Yeah, I know. There's been a lot going on but there hasn't been any motivation to write about it.

First: We are still waiting on the house thing. All our papers are in order, pretty much. We are waiting on who knows at the top of the red tape to sign whatever paper to increase the limit on income for this very specific loan we have applied for. Right now "they" are saying March 29. Cross your fingers.

Second: almost three weeks ago I experienced my first major entanglement of an Oklahoma tornado. Not the most pleasant experience. Jason and I had to take separate cars that day because I had a PEO meeting in Ardmore and Jason had basketball games to announce in Sulphur. My meeting was canceled due to the potential for bad weather but I came home anyway. I went to Wal-Mart for a few things before I got home then made some good supper. I just chilled on the couch a bit. It was probably a little before 7pm when I started looking at the weather on the web and TV. I wasn't really concerned. There had been severe weather before and it never escalated and it was February for crying out loud. I was tracking the path on the web when I heard on the TV there was a storm chaser in Wilson, Ok which is due west of Ardmore. The guy was talking and all of a sudden he yelled, "Tornado on the ground, tornado on the ground." That got my attention so I listened more closely. He also said there was hail and while he was talking about it a car smashed into his car. They had to go to a break. Meanwhile I heard the tornado sirens come on. Panic mode. This next part may make you laugh...go ahead.

My first instinct when there's a possibility of power outage or water shortage is to fill up pitchers of water or even the bathtub. Don't ask me why but I just do, ok! So I immediately filled up the Brita water pitcher we have in the refrigerator. The next thing I did was think, I better go to the hospital basement (that is our designated tornado shelter). I was a little frantic and almost left with my houseshoes on. I did get my tennis shoes on and make it to my car. It was lightening quite frequently. It only takes about four minutes to get to the hospital but it seem like forever. I was a little worried that I would be the only one headed there. WRONG. The rest of humanity who didn't have a storm cellar was there too. Probably close to 200 people. I found a spot against the wall and waited. There was a lady next to me who needed a cigeratte and I gave her a piece of gum, hopefully to calm her down. I called my Dad to get some info on the path of the storm and also when it was safe to leave. I used my own phone to look it up but of course my battery was dying. Jason's sister called to check on me and report to Jason who in the meantime with the rest of the people at the highschool basketball game were in the safe room at the school. Built specifically for tornados. The only time while I was in the basement, the lights flickered once. That scared me. After an hour, the hospital staff gave the go ahead to leave.

I exited the building and the temperature had dropped dramatically. Was a lot of water in the ditches. I had to step it in to get to my car...brrrrrrr. Still lightening a lot but the majority of the storm had passed the northeast...toward Sulphur. I drove back to the apartment complex to notice that we had no electricity. It's wierd to be in total darkness. I did have my cell phone. It served as my flashlight for a little bit. I panicked for a second when I realized our apartment door lock is electric but separate from the grid. Needless to say I got in. Ok, now what? Ah HA!! I could use the lantern I bought when I was in Waco at a great price! Did I have the right sized batteries? Yes!!! I had two flashlights that had enough. The lantern gave off much more light. Now what? Nothing to do. Refrigerator? Eeek!! I had Jason's ribeye for Valentine's Day in there. I had to save it and everything else. So I went back to Wal-Mart to buy more batteries, ice, and candles that didn't have any fragrance so I could breathe. When I got to Wal-Mart again for the second time that day there were hardly any cars but there were shopping carts everywhere, blown about by the wind. It was really wierd. In Wal-Mart I got what I needed and then went to the book section. Twilight was staring at me, I was going to read it eventually, why not in the dark? I bought it.

Got home, packed as much food in a cooler with the ice as I could and started cleaning. It's a wierd reaction but I was pumped up on so much adreniline I couldn't sit there. Plus Jason wasn't home yet. I did get a hold of him. He was very relieved to hear my voice. You should hear the message he left me when he couldn't reach me, but that's between me and him :D You have to understand something about the weather. Jason is fascinated with it but very cautious when it becomes severe. Me on the otherhand, I'm pretty laid back. I knew that if I hadn't gone to the hospital basement like he would have done, he would have killed me when he got home. My survival instincts got the better of me.

Anywhoo...he got home around 10pm. We couldn't go to sleep so we just walked around aimlessly in the dark, me cleaning until around 11pm. The electricity came on!! Yay! It was a short time to be off but long enough. The food was saved!!! I could take a hot shower!

The Monday after the tornado several of the members of the church we attend were going to help some people in an area that was hit by the tornado that really hadn't been mentioned at all because no one was killed or even hurt that I know of. Jason and I were off that Monday because of President's Day so we decided to help. I'd never seen tornado damage in person and it was definitely a shock. The tornado, in fact, passed north of us about a mile from our apartment. That's where we were going. We helped clear fallen trees from some homes. The devestation was awesome and awful. It looked like a giant had walked through the trees knocking some completely down and some where he just took his hands and snapped them in half. I took a few pictures.

So much for that adventure. I will be better prepared for severe weather next time. We now have a "tornado box" with some essentials like batteries, cards to play with, candles, matches and snacks.

Third: This past week has been pretty terrible. I have one particular class I teach where about half the students work on other things when I lecture or even review for a test. I've talked to them about it, even talked to some parents but apparently I didn't get their attention. This week I had to review for the test for two days. Problems with one entire class being gone the whole hour. Had to give them at least one day to review. Anyway. The class that was acting up, I decided to get their attention by giving them the test the day we were supposed to review. The students who were trying to review got to use their books, the other did not. It upset some of them. Probably because they failed the test. Some of them took it to the principal's office. This was Wednesday. At the end of the hour, when the bells rang both principal and assistant principal came into my room. I immediately felt crappy and the tears came. Now you have to understand something. I do not revel being the "evil one" as I'm sure my students were putting it mildly. But I also cry when I literally don't feel good. It was a combination of both I think. But how can I explain that to two male figure heads. I dont' know if they thought I was just an emotional person or what...needless to say I was completely embarassed. There were no other students with us, so that made it better.

They sided with me. Gary, our principal, knew exactly was I was going through. He had been the exact situation before when he was teaching. No big deal. I'm totally over it now but at the time it was a crappy thing to go through because it didn't end that Wednesday. The reason I didn't feel well was because I caught, apparently the 72 hour stomach bug and not the throwing up kind. Ugggh. It wasn't enough to stop me from staying home but I wasn't eating a whole bunch. I was hungry and nauseated at the same time. Ate crackers mostly until last night. Rice soup. Felt better. Feeling 10 times better today. That's why I'm finally getting around and writing this HUGE blog!!! I didn't realize how bad I felt until this morning when I felt awesome!

I also feel awesome because I finished the Twilight saga. I couldn't stop. So much that I bought New Moon and finished it the day I bought it. I had to borrow Eclipse and Breaking Dawn from one of my students!!! It was a great series. Very different from what I expected!

Anyway. Today is great day! I'm feeling good and motivated to tackle some of the mess that is our apartment. (Jason hasn't felt good this week either).

I hope every thing is well with all of you out there!!

Later taters,
Jess

PS: I'm really excited about these movies: Madea Goes to Jail; The Watchmen :D and 9

Updates and not so Randomness Part 2

2009-01-29T09:54:00.008-06:00

Here are some pictures of the house we've been really looking at:

The facade is awesome. Vinyl!! Sage greeny...it's been landscaped. Living room is a tad small but ok for right now. The kitchen is AWESOME!!!! The utility room with washer/dryer is AWESOME!! Bathrooms are awesome with their tile and rain showerheads. Backyard is huge with two decks (one for the grills and one for hangin' out). Three bedrooms, two full baths; 1500 sq ft AND at a great price. Pray that we will be able to find a good banker and interest rate and everything goes smoothly. This would be my first house and Jason's second. Woot woot!!!

All these updates to say we are doing well and there are some exciting things happening right now. We are very blessed with what we have and what we could have.

On another note, I just want you to be in prayer for my family, specifically Drew and Mandy and the girls, Alex and Emma. As most of you know, sweet Alex has had physical problems since birth. She goes to therapy several times a week and has checkups several times a year. Over the past couple of months Mandy and the therapist have noticed that Alex favors her right arm and hand. She draws them up to the side of her body. About a week ago her tongue started pushing to the right side of her mouth and she does have a little bit of a drooling problem. That prompted Mandy to expedite an appointment with Kansas City Children's hospital. The appointment was yesterday where she had an MRI done. The doctor thinks he knows what the problem is and it's probable that Emma has it too.

The doctor is French and they like him very much. He is sending Alex's bloodwork to France to be tested because, so far, there isn't a facility in the US to test for this particular genetic disease. According to Drew the doctor said if it is in fact this very rare disease, it is progressive, meaning it will get worse. Pray that this is NOT the case.

Updates, Randomness Part 1

2009-01-29T08:51:00.008-06:00

Well I thought I would first start off with some updates on the past two months.

I finished every knitting project I was on (except the ongoing project of the afghan for over 11 years).
Christmas, as always, was too short with family. We had a good time and also celebrated Alex's 6th birthday. I made a "present cake" for her!
I got a bike from all the Christmas money I received (thanks to all who contributed!!)
Christmas has come and gone and now I have springitis as well as my students.
Jason and I have been house hunting for several months now and I think we have found a house that would suit us... (pictures in the next blog)
Here are some pictures:

Me with Alex and her knitted presents

Happy/Sassy Emma with her knitted hat

Nephews TC, Bryce and Devon on Christmas Day

Brother-in-law Cliff with his new gun...it was like he was a kid...
he wore it all day around the house

My beautiful bike with awesome helmet. I actually did ride it the other day when the temperature was actually WARM!!!!

New Years Eve picture

Alex's cake Mom and I made for her!

Valentine's Day revisited

2009-01-19T21:52:00.002-06:00

Hmmmm....Valentine's Day seems like a cuss word lately. Several people I know have explained why they hate this holiday. Granted it is VERY commercialized, so is every other holiday, but so many people hate this particular one and not the others. I wonder why. Is it because they have no one to love? Or no one loves them? Most of the people that I have heard complaining have significant others, so what's the deal? Should we not celebrate with the ones we love? My most memorable Valentine's day gift was from my father. I remember coming home and there was a big heart balloon standing in the floor. Yeah, standing. It was a heart person. It had legs and feet and arms too. It was soo cute.

Maybe we get so upset is that we have to spend money. Really? Do you? Does it cost money to spend time with the one you love? I have made it clear to my husband that flowers that cost $50 or more is cool but not necessary. I'd be happy with a single rose. I told him that we didn't have to go out to eat, in fact, I'd rather stay in so I can cook him a nice meal. Do I like Valentine's Day? Sure. Do I hope I get something? Sure I do.

What my brain has been pondering is maybe people crave this day is because they don't get any other day. Yes, they may be married or have a girl/boyfriend...but do they feel special outside Valentine's Day? A lot of people say we shouldn't have a holiday to say you love someone and I totally agree but does anybody on a regular basis show they love someone not on Valentine's Day? Do you ask how their day is? Do you do the dishes without being prompted? or fix dinner when not asked? Do you kiss them for no reason? Do you sit by them on the couch when you watch TV? Do you suggest things to do with them? Do you tell them they are handsome/beautiful? It's easy for me to ask if they do those things for you, but do you do those things for them as well?

Just some thoughts while vegging in the tub.

I should be writing about the other stuff that's happening but don't feel like it...maybe later.

Peace,
Jess

Christmas Update

2008-12-20T10:22:00.004-06:00

We're on vacation! vacation! So happy!!! Last two days have been semester tests for the students and so it's been pretty easy and consequently I've been on vacation since Thursday. I have still been knitting like a crazy person and think I will have my projects completed in time for Christmas!!!

Got some good news Thursday too. We've been trying to relocate to Sulphur to cut down on some expenses and with Jason's financial situation we weren't sure if we were going to rent or buy. It turns out we will be in a position to buy (at least that's what the bank told us). So we are officially excited and looking forward to finding something that will suit us!!!!

The video you see below is from Friday. We had a Christmas assembly where songs were sung and skits were acted out. My hubby was asked to play a part that only he could play...Buddy the Elf...see for yourself...it was awesome!!!!! the kids loved it!

Bloggin' Once a Month...

2008-12-15T11:38:00.003-06:00

I guess that's what I'll be doing...a once a month blogger. This past month has been extremely busy... of course there was Thanksgiving and Christmas is around the corner, so we've been running around like crazy people here. I guess I blogged about Jason's birthday and that I baked an awesome apple pie and a cherry one. What else...I've still been knitting away. For Thanksgiving we went to Jason's parent's house and I baked a blackberry pie...that didn't last long.

It was nice just to hang out. They live outside of McAlester, OK and in their backyard on Thanksgiving day there were about 20 turkeys feeding. It was awesome. We helped put the Christmas tree up and hung the lights and played with TC, our nephew. Then the day after Thanksgiving we went to Fayetteville, AR to be with my family. That was fun too, except the day that Emma, our niece, tumbled into the rock ledge and busted her lip pretty good. Ick. Yummy turkey and we had a very good time playing Trival Pursuit 80s version. Except the guys won. Nah.... Drew, Mandy and I went and saw Four Christmases. It was pretty funny. The entire audience was laughing and that is always a good sign. We also watched Pat play video games on his XBox 360. Cool. That Saturday night we went over to Dad's and watched the OU game (which we won) yeah!!! and had catfish. yummy.

We finally had to come home :( and get ready for three more weeks of school!!! Yippeee!!! We are all counting the days. I'm actually home today because I'm not feeling so good. Coughing up a lot of gunk...more than you wanted to know, no doubt. Anywho...school is gearing up for semester tests. In the middle of it all, my PEO chapter met last Tuesday for our annual Christmas shindig. This time we made something for a silent auction to raise money for the chapter's projects. I made my first fondant covered cake. It was a practice run before I made Alex's birthday cake after Christmas. For my first time...I think I did a pretty ok job!!! It took me the longest to color the fondant. Wow what a job!! My triceps hurt. You have to knead it like dough but it's a little tougher than dough. I also wanted to make the bow on top just like it was on the box, but that didn't work. See the before and after picture.

I also have decorated for Christmas. The tree is up and the theme is red. I don't have all that many ornaments but that's ok. I'm sort of a minimialist. I did need a centerpiece for the table though. So I bought one of those do it yourself gingerbread house kits at Wal-Mart. The house was already put together, thank goodness, and then I just deocrated it. It turned out pretty cute and perfect for the table.

Last weekend on the 6th, Jason and I went to OKC to the train convention. It was pretty cool. If you are a train enthusiast, this is the place for you!!!! We spent almost four hours there and were starving by the time we got out. We went to eat and bypassed the horse show that was next to the train show :( We ate at 3pm at the Rib Crib, yummy, and then went to see the James Bond movie. It was pretty good!!!!!! Would recommend it!!! Afterwards we went to the Sooner Mall and shopped a little bit. Got some clothes for me and Jason's Christmas present. Then we went to Bed Bath and Beyond for some addtional items. We drove home in anticipation of the OU vs Missouri game. Jason was a bit tense, but I knew we would pull it off. We did. Now we are number one and Sam Bradford is the Heisman Trophy winner and we have to play Florida. That will be a game, fo sho!!!!

This past weekend I went to Ruth, the sister-in-law's house for a girls night out and some Bunco!!! It was fun! I almost forgot how to play! We also had an ornament exchange and I got a pretty wooden cross for the tree AND a light up Santa. Pauline and Archie (parents-in-law) came over late that night to Ruth's and we all played with TC. I slept on the bottom bunk of the boys room (they weren't there). I slept pretty good, actually!! We went and got breakfast and shopping a little bit and found something for Dad. I hope he likes it!!!! Now I just have to find something for Drew...I have NO IDEA what he would like. It's a conundrum. I'll probably ask Mandy for some help.

I am furiously knitting and think I will have everything done. I hope so....

That's about it except for counting down the days until break. Yeah!!!!! Happy Christmas and don't forget the meaning of this season... Jesus.

Hugs and Love,
Jessica

One of those days....

2008-11-18T21:30:00.002-06:00

Well it was not a typical day today. Woke up at the normal time and tried to take a shower but there was no hot water!! UGH!!! Yikes! What to do! What to do!!! Brushed my hair, washed my face and put my clothes on. About halfway through the day, I figured out that I'm pretty sure I forgot to put deodorant on. My routine was messed up!!! Give me break!! There is a certain order to what I do in the morning and it just didn't work out!! So I'm dressed and had my lunch ready to go and was going to leave slightly early because I had to fill my tank with gas, which is unusual because normally Jason and I ride together. Not today... Jason had an appointment in Tulsa to go see Metallica in concert and he was leaving right after school. Ok, so I tried to start my car this morning to go get the gas needed and the car was totally dead. I wasn't actually surprised by this because it had happened about a week ago but I was able to turn it over. Jason and I were able to jump it and I drove straight to Wal-Mart to get a new battery. By this time it's about 7:07am. The automotive center is open at this time but not raring to go. I found the correct battery and brought it to the counter and it was like they started moving in slow motion (with Chariots of Fire music playing in the background). Of course time dragged on sooooo slowly and the pit of my stomach and my tear ducts started acting up. I did mention to them I was a teacher and had to drive to Sulphur, which is 30 minutes away...there was finally some progress. I got to school just before 8:45am. Whew!!! The great thing is my planning period is 1st hour so I didn't have any students waiting for me. And thank God for giving me the gift of organization, otherwise I would have been babbling in front of my kids. I was prepared for classes and everything went pretty smoothly.

It started out as one of those days but actually ended up pretty darn good. I received my second ever bonus check. It was a chunk of money too. I am sooooo thankful for it. What I need seems to come when I need it. Go figure!!! Thank you, God! Jason came and checked on me during 4th hour (his planning period) and he was so sweet and knew I was stressed. It's really the little things that count and I realize you can love someone more and more as time goes by. It's pretty amazing!!!

So all I have done tonight is eat fat free pudding, watched TV (including the movie Aladdin) and knitted until my fingers are permanently curved!!! Not really, but close. I have been a knitting crazy person...ask Jason there are needles and yarn everywhere!!!! It's all good, though. People like getting homemade stuff for Christmas, right? They know it's all from the heart, right? Don't worry, those of you who fear you might get knitted socks...I have refrained, however I did think about it! There is a pattern for legwarmers...muwahahahahahahaaaaaaa...

To copy from my sister's blog...this blog really is about thanks...yes, it was one of those days today, but everything was taken care of. I am taken care of and I am grateful. Grateful for God who has laid out my life up to this point, to this hour and has taken care of me this far. Even when I have screwed up. Grateful to God who has given me a husband who worries about me when he doesn't have to and also takes care of me. Thank you, Lord! Thanks for all the family and friends you have laid in my path and thank you for the things that make my life comfortable. We are the luckiest people on earth, here in America and we should be grateful for all of it. There are so many people in the world who don't have anything. We shouldn't complain when our lives get "cramped" due to an unstable economy. At least we have food on the table.

OHHH!!!! AND I got gas today for $20 dollars. NEVER in my life did I think I would be able to fill up my gas tank again for that much. Thank you, Lord!!!

Hugs and Kisses to family and friends...
-J

Politics and a Relaxing Weekend

2008-11-09T08:52:00.007-06:00

Well, it's finally over!!! The presidential election is history so to speak and what history it's made!! Because I'm teaching government to 15 year olds, I've had to pay attention this year. Actually, since I've been teaching it, I've become more interested in politics. I still HATE the commercials and watching the debates. I think they are senseless because all they do is throw muck at each other and people will base their decisions on the ads. *sigh* This year I assigned my students a political party and had them research the platforms of those parties on specific issues. It was interesting and then we had a debate!!! One can definitely tell which students share their parents' politics and who has their own ideas and then those who don't give a flip. We also had a mock election using the actual ballot that was used in the election. McCain won by 5 votes. We also explored propaganda techniques that campaigners use on television to persuade you to vote one way or the other. I had groups create commercials based on those propaganda techniques and filmed them. You can see some of them on my YouTube site (I had their parent's permission, of course).

So who did you vote for? This is a very sensitive subject. I respect both candidates very much. John McCain for the huge sacrifices he has made for our country. His concession speech was gracious and eloquent. I hope he is able to come back from his loss and still be able to serve his country like he said he wanted to. When I listened to Barack Obama's acceptance speech, I was in awe. His message was so inspiring (kudos to his speech writers). He also cautioned us that while change is what he wants, it can't happen over night. It is incredible to watch the course of history take place while I'm alive. I believe it will be a good thing. I don't agree with everything Obama leans towards, specifically abortion and stem cell research, BUT I do believe he is sincere when he says he wants change and that he wants to bring the parties together to create that change for America. I also loved watching the election inspire so many people, especially young people to be involved in this process. Electing our first black president is monumental, people!! I thought I would never see this happen in my lifetime. Unfortunately, I hear to many cynics talk about hoping he makes it to January 20th. A tiny piece of my brain fears that some idiot will try to assassinate Obama but I honestly think he'll be OK. I remember when there were rumors of Colin Powell possibly running for president, I thought it was a great idea but I thought he would be assassinated too.

No matter what happens, Obama has inherited a big mess. I hope he can help bring us out of the mire. Remember, he is just the president. He can't do anything he wants. There is Congress - the branch who makes the laws (yes, I know the Democrats have control in both the Senate and House). I voted for Barack Obama after years of voting Republican. I'm not a die hard Democrat either. I vote according to my conscience, not according to party.

Different Subject: This weekend

Last Saturday was Jason's birthday. His parents came down and we hung out by watching tons of football and eating good food. Jason got an email for a complimentary meal with a purchased meal at Texas de Brazil. Yummy. We went there after we got married and it was fabulous. We decided that we would go to Dallas on Friday to eat at the restaurant, spend the night and cruise around town for the day. Angie and I started txting and we decided that the hubbys and wives would get together for dim sum at Kirin Court in Richardson. Yummy. Dim sum is southern style food from China. They bring the food around in little carts and ask you if you want any. Fast food so to speak. HAH!!! But really good food too. It was Jason's first time for that style of cooking. He's warming up to it!! After dim sum we all went to Central Market. This is the mecca for all food connoisseurs. It has hundreds of different cheeses and tons of olives and balsamic vinegar for $200. I know, it's ridiculous but so much fun!!!! Chris (Angie's hubby) is a gourmet cook in his spare time and bought some things for their supper that night. Sounded good. Jason and I bought a couple of items, too. We mainly just followed Chris around tasting cheeses. Yummy. We split up from Central Market (waaahhhh!!!). Chris and Angie went home and Jason and I went to Huffines Hyundai dealership. There has been talk of trading my car in sooner or later for a Hyuandi Veracruz. LOVE IT!!! It's really all about timing and where we'll be in January and, oh yeah, the money. We'll see. We were treated very nicely by the salesman. He wasn't pushy and didn't talk a lot. I didn't get that creepy feeling like I did the time I went to Greg May Honda in Waco. We were just really relaxed and enjoyed the day. After talking with the guy and thanking him for being cool, we headed over to Fry's Electronics with one goal in mind. The new Harry Connick, Jr. Christmas album. When I couldn't find it, I asked an associate and they looked at me like I had something sprouting out of my head. WHO'S HARRY CONNICK, JR.????? The guy really needs to get out of his mom's basement and stop playing video games!!!! He had no clue who it was. That's OK, he couldn't find it either, so we went down the road to Best Buy and found it there. Done and done. We hopped in the car and headed home...and listened to Harry. It is a good CD. Very jazzy and with some traditional songs in there too as well as several Harry wrote himself. (We are on a first name basis).

This weekend has been really relaxing. We had a plan and were doing lots of things but it was on our time schedule and had plenty of time to sleep in and get ready, etc... it was great. Good times with friends and good food. Good times, good times....

PS: Two weeks until our Thanksgiving break starts!!! Yippeee!!!

Lack of Motivation...

2008-10-26T17:13:00.006-05:00

...is the reason I haven't written any blogs. I just don't seem to want to or don't think I have anything interesting to say. I guess I can update you on what's been going on though.

September has come and gone. I feel rather pathetic because I can't remember anything. I remember Jason and I gave blood together and going to home football games.

October.

I've been knitting a lot and some of the things I've been making have turned out very nice. They are all Christmas presents and so I can't say what they are so they will be surprise. A friend of mine FINALLY got married and we went to it in Waco. We met Mary Beth, David and Jennifer at Teryaki Park for some really good Asian food. Jason seemed to like the sushi. We went over to MB's house to change and met Jennie and Ben there. I gave Ben a blue crocheted cap for winter. It fit, thank goodness, and he was pretty cute.

The wedding was nice. We BARELY made it. We thought we knew where it was but the Mapquest map was wrong. It was about 2 miles south of where it really was. We walked in, all the seats were pretty much filled up with Latinos. Jason and I sat on the second row. There weren't enough seats for all of us together. The ceremony took place at the Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall Church and the ceremony was in Spanish. There was a lot of reading from the Bible and I could pick out the books and chapters and sometimes verses. I heard the word "pantalones" and laughing, so I assumed it was about Sammy wearing the pants in the family. Afterwards we went to the reception and waited forever. Jason and I had plans to go to the restuarant Edelweiss in Ft. Worth. It was getting later and later and finally we just told MB and the gang to say hello to Sammy and Roxanna for us. There was some discussion of even going to the restuarant because of some disagreements about behavior during the excursion but ended up going. All I have to say about that is you should never use your gender as an excuse for behavior you can control...

Oh, the day before the wedding, Jason and I went to the home game and we won $50 because the program I bought had a sticker in it. The only one apparently. This is the second time we've won. Last year Jason won $100. It was great!! The money paid for our German food at Edelweiss.

After the wedding, we started counting down the days until our Fall Break which was last week. We had two days off. Thursday and Friday. It was a pretty hectic week because we were trying to get our grades in for the end of the first nine weeks. They have gone by pretty fast and will probably go faster until after Christmas. Then it will "slow" down. Looking forward to Thanksgiving already!!!

We first went to Arkansas to see family. I hadn't seen them since July. It was nice and cool and we slept pretty good. We went up Wednesday after school. Thursday we went fishing and I caught some decent fish and watched my two brothers in the boat almost tip over. It was pretty hilarious. When they get together it's like the three stooges but with just two people. They also "claimed" they saw a mountain lion. They may have but I was on the far side of the pond and didn't see it. That would have been cool. We also practiced shooting a little bit. I shot Pat's .45 handgun. Jason and I headed back early from fishing to pick up Aunt Paula from the airport. She was staying for a week because mom was having a minor procedure that next Monday. So I showered and then picked up Aunt Paula. Jason was having a time with his allergies too. Sniffiling and coughing a lot. Later that night we all went over to Drew and Mandy's house to eat hamburgers and have surprise birthday cake for Mom whose B-Day is on Halloween. It was fun playing with the girls.

That Saturday Jason and I went over to Dad's for breakfast and then trekked on over to McAlester to stay the night at Jason's parents. His mom was by herself while his dad went hunting. He should have stayed home because there were deer in their backyard the night we got there and then Sunday morning. It was pretty cool. Came home and took a nap and unpacked and tried to get ready for the week.

I'm frantically trying to get all my knitting done, so I've been sitting on the couch A LOT!!! I do nothing physical so I feel like a fat slob. I did, however, clean the ceiling fans in our bedroom and living room with this handy dandy cleaning too that is washable microfiber. I love it and there is no embarassing dust pileup on the fans or anywhere else for that matter.

Last Friday was our HUGE rivalry football game agains the Davis Wolves. We were 7-0, hoping to go undefeated. No such luck. The game was a literal nail biter. It really came down to the last play. We just couldn't make it over the goal line. It ended up being 8-14, Davis.

This weekend we laid low and did nothing which was fine, but it needs to be colder. I sleep better when it's colder and I was too hot.

Jason and I watched Ironman finally. It was really good and funny. Robert Downy, Jr. pulled it off very well.

Well that's it and we are going to start a new week. I'm dressing up for Halloween as a pirate and then I think I will retire the costume. I've got pirate music to play that day too. The kids will think it's great.

OH!!! I could tell you what my government class has been up to. I'm pretty proud of it too. Because the elections are so close, we held mock elections for the presidential candidates. I assigned everybody a political party to research the issues (they didn't have to vote for that party). First I made them register to vote using the official forms. If they didn't fill it out right, they didn't get a voter identification card. So they had to research the issues for two days and then we held debates based on their notes, and then the next day they voted using a sample ballot the county is actually using. It went rather well. I could definitely tell which students had their parents' political views, who had their own views and who didn't care. All in all it was pretty cool. The final outcome was McCain with 17 and Obama with 12. The last question I asked the kids was this: What if Obama was an Arab American or Musilim? Would it matter?

This past week we talked about how misleading polls can be and what types of propaganda the mass media uses to try to influence you. I had them create commercials based on an assigned propaganda technique and then I filmed them. Some were really great. I will put them on YouTube when I get parent's permission. I'll let you know when they are up!

One more thing...(I'm starting to remember other stuff...). Every five years some of our family goes on a trip for about two weeks. 2010 is the next trip and it will be to Germany and Austria and guess who's in charge? ME!!! I've already started the planning and if anyone is interested in going, let me know!!! IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!! Think about it!

That's about it...gonna go make some supper and watch Iron Chef America!!!

Mission: 4 weeks of school; Status: Complete

2008-09-07T08:24:00.005-05:00

Well I have survived four weeks at a new school and it seems to have gone pretty well. Since last blog entry Jason and I were gearing up for the new school year and trying to survive being broke. I'm happy to announce that we are still together and we got paid on Friday. YAY!!!!

Man, I need to blog more frequently because I forget things!!! Well here I go and try to reconstruct the last couple of weeks. The first week of August we had pre-school professional development days and working on our class rooms. That was some work, I can tell you. I'm still not satisfied with my room. I need some curtains and plants to make it look homier (is that a word?) The professional days were ok. Some were boring some were good info. The next week started school. Yeah, August 11th. Holy Mackerel. It seems like it's getting earlier and earlier!!! The first couple of days were fine just because we weren't doing "school work." We were just getting to know each other. THEN we started school work on Wednesday. It's nice to be in a bigger school and have other social studies teachers available to sort of compare how you do things and where you should be in the curriculum at a certain time, etc... I'm also in the West Wing of the building where it's really quiet and where junior and senior lockers are located. It's not as chaotic there. I've got some great teacher neighbors and they have been a tremendous help and super nice!!!!

Ok, back to school. My schedule goes like this: 1st hour - planning period. This has some advantages and disadvantages. 2nd - 4th is Government, 5th is US History, Lunch, 6th - Gov. and 7th Psychology. It's interesting that there are 5 classes before lunch but I like it. That means there's only two classes after and they go by really quick!!

The only snag I hit in the first week was that I had no Psychology books. They were in the school somewhere but the principal was gone and he was the only one who knew where they were!!! The next week I got them and there weren't enough!!! AAAHHH!!! It's been only this past week that the additional books came in that were ordered. YAY!!! That first week, I had to wing it. Ugh! OHHHH!!!! and my feet hurt SO BAD the first week of school. Now they are fine...I guess they just had to get used to it...poor feet.

The students in my classes for the most part are excellent. We have some interesting conversations about music and the journal entries I have them write at the beginning of class. The last one being the top 12 worst movies of all time. I picked 2001: Space Odyssey. I will never get back those two and a half hours of my life. There are a few students who keep me on my toes and test my patience. But I think for the most part, most of the kids know I mean business. Sometimes they will say, "but Mr. McMullen doesn't do it that way." And I always reply, "but I'm not Mr. McMullen, am I!" I think they think that we are a novelty because we are married and they are having fun with it. I do enjoy working at the same place as Jason. We drive together and sometimes eat together. But it's not like we are spending all day together. And we understand why we are tired and commiserate together about certain idiosyncrasies of the school and students. It's nice.

My concern about my teaching, and I think I will always have this concern, is how to make what I'm teaching about relevant and fun. I know I can't always make the Civil War fun because that period really wasn't fun but it is relevant. Friday we were taking notes in US History class but before we started, I told them that other things were happening during this time, not just the Civil War, so I started listing off stuff happening around the world during 1861. I saved the best for last. The first flush toilet was patented by Mr. Thomas.....Crapper. No joke. They thought it was hilarious. I do too. But now they know where the term "crap" came from. They learned history!!!! Yay for me!!! I hope they will remember SOMETHING about my class (not necessarily crap ;)

I now have a new friend...I will call him Mr. Bo Jangles. He is a mouse. A mouse came and visited my Psychology class last Thursday. He ran in to my storage closet and I thought I had him trapped there but Friday while I was grading papers after school he ran from the closet, behind me and behind my desk. Every once in awhile he would poke his little head out and say hi but if I moved he would scamper around the corner out of sight. *Sigh* I hope he doesn't make a permanent home there. Hmmmmmm, I hope it's not a she.

In other news:

Labor Day weekend was semi-restful. Jason's parents came over for the weekend and we just laid around. It was great! We did nothing!!! Monday we met Jason's sister and her boys for breakfast at IHOP and then played at the apartment for the day. I made cookies, we played Scategories, the kids played in the pool. It was fun. But Jason and I were tired after everybody left. I think we went to bed at 8:30. No joke.

This Friday Jason and I were scheduled to work in the concession stand at the first home game of the season. We actually had a lot of fun. We got to interact with the people of Sulphur and with some of our students and parents who helped us. We were soooooo tired after though. We got home about 10:30. The next morning we got up to go to Waurika, OK to watch Devon (nephew) play in his first football game of the season. Then we went to Comanche and chilled a bit before Bryce (other nephew) had his eighth birthday party at their church. It was Kung Fu Panda themed. We had a good time and ate birthday cake and ice cream. I think I have decided to have small birthday parties at home for my kids. It was a pretty major event. Bryce raked in the money and presents. He got a Stormtrooper helmet that talks. It was cool. Jason and I left that evening because we have so much to do today, including buying much needed groceries, doing laundry and creating my lesson plans for this week. I thought I would throw in a blog too.

OH! We have received our Wedding DVD and it's pretty cool. We are waiting anxiously for the actual pictures. Hopefully we will get them soon.

ALSO: You can check out my school website, to see what kind of cool teacher I am.

Gettin' Ready for School...

2008-08-04T17:27:00.005-05:00

I love getting ready for school!!! You get to get supplies (I love supplies) and you get to arrange your classroom the way you want it. You also get to clean, which I don't mind doing because it makes your room look awesome. Call me a dork, I don't care. There are other people out there who like this aspect too and you know who you are!!!

Today was the first day in a very long time that we have set the alarm. It was torture. Actually it wasn't tooooo bad, but I still didn't like it. Jason thought we should start getting back into the routine. Ok, whatever... We took most of our classroom stuff to school and found out that Jason couldn't do anything in his room because they were about to wax the hallway in his wing. So we got to work in my room, which, honestly, did need the most work. I like my room, I just have two issues. I need a projector (with projector screen) and a whiteboard with markers. I was a little spoiled at Thackerville and had both. Eventually I will get both but it will just take a little while. Meanwhile I have to contend with a chalk board!!!! Yikes!!! I will have to be super dooper creative. I can totally do it. I do have a ton of cork board that I can put posters and stuff on it. I think I will steal from Facebook the application "Pieces of Flair" and have part of the cork board available for my students' flair, ie, good papers, etc... All in all I'm excited to go back tomorrow and make my room look awesomer!!! OOOOooooohhhhh!!! Forgot to tell you the school has a vault of supplies and I'm planning on looking tomorrow and see if there is anything I need. Mmmwwwahhhahhhhahhhhaaa!!!

Other news: I scratched my cornea Thursday morning around 4:30am. I have NO IDEA how I did it either. I just remember sitting straight up with my hand over my eye and having feel like it was on fire or someone had literally scratched my eyeball with their fingernails. Relax, it wasn't Jason. I go to the bathroom and look and I can barely open the lids. I did remove my contact in the left eye. ( I have contacts I sleep in). I thought the right contact had come out, but when I looked closer it was still there so I removed it. Dang, it hurt!!! I couldn't tell by just looking in the mirror if I had scratched it somewhere and I thought maybe Visine would help. Wowsers!!! It did not. I finally just got a washcloth and soaked it in cold water and placed over my eye and tried to go back to sleep. The eye doctor didn't open until 8:30. I have no idea how I went back to sleep but I did. I woke Jason about 8:00 and let him know what was going on. I took a shower and called the eye doctor and told them I was coming in right away, it was any emergency. I got there with Jason driving me and I had tears pouring from my eye and they asked me for my insurance. Aaaahh! I had it but I had to dig for it. While they were dealing with that, they took me back to the exam room and asked a couple of questions and then put a miracle drug in my eye to numb the pain. I then could actually open my eye. I was thinking, "I have GOT to get me some of THAT!!!" The receptionist came to the room and said that my insurance was terminated as of today. July 31. OKKKKKK! Thank goodness it happened today and not Friday!!! I was still covered. The doctor came in and checked and said that there was a scratch on my cornea in a perfect circle. OK. Still can't figure out how that happened. He dilated my eye, so I looked spooky. Jason wondered if the doctor was going to give me an eye patch, arggh! I got my antibiotics and pain killers. Went to Wal-mart to fill the prescription, and then came home to sleep. I was really tired from the ordeal.

The next day we went back for a check up and my eye was perfectly healed!!!! Yay!!! The doctor said the cornea was one of the fastest healing organs in the body. Thank goodness. I don't EVER want to go through that again. That was some of the worst pain I've been through. He did say however, there was a slight chance for reoccurence in the next 2-3 months. Great. He suggested I get some artificial tears and use them before I go to sleep. That should help. What an adventure. It's rarely boring around here!!!

After the check up, Jason and I headed to OKC for some shopping. His parents gave us some clothes money for school and the weekend was a tax free holiday for clothes. Yippee!!! We had a good time together.

So, tomorrow brings more exciting adventures for Jason and Jessica, as tomorrow always does. And the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day....

So until then, Arividerchi!!!!

Summer break is nearing its end....

2008-07-30T10:37:00.011-05:00

I thought I would write a real blog instead of stealing someone else's. Hee hee. Ok. I thought I would write about the last couple of weeks and looking forward to the next couple of weeks. Married life as a newlywed is great. We are spending a lot of time together and mostly because we don't go out because we are broke!!! LOL!! The first major hump of being married. Bills have been paid and I think we have enough money for food ;-) but the rest...well there is no rest. Remember we are teachers and the pay schedule can be different from school to school. Sulphur and Thackerville have different pay schedules. I will not be getting a check in August when I start at Sulphur, like I did at Thackerville, because Sulphur already gave out their August pay checks. Thackerville gave out their August paychecks at the beginning of the school year. Therefore the effect is we are eating less and being creative with the Ramen noodles. :D LOL!! It's not that bad, but we do have Ramen noodles. We did have to break down and eat out at our favorite Mexican restaraunt last week. I think we were going into withdrawals. And I did go see The Dark Knight in the afternoon. Pretty good movie!! What else. Not much else. We've pretty much kept to ourselves and have been reading, playing games on the computer, watching TV and swimming/floating in the apartment pool. And because I'm a dork, I will tell you what game we have been addicted to. It's called Peggle and it's on www.popcap.com I will say no more.

Yes...we've even had tournaments.

Yesterday was my birthday and got a LOT of birthday wishes and calls and e-cards that were really cute! It was a lot of fun! I got a flower and two awesome cards from Jason and the deluxe version of Peggle. One of the cards was a talking card from The Office. It was AWWWWESOME!!! The other was really cute with bears on it. We also went to Turner Falls just up the road about 20 miles from here. It's a park with beautiful falls and trails and caves. We took a picnic and I climbed what I'm going to refer to as a mountain. In my definition it really was. I am so proud of myself. I actually physically got my fat butt up the side and literally had to climb up the dang rocks. At first I didn't think I could go all the way but I kept on saying "just a little more," and eventually I was at the top!!! The terrain is sooooo rocky there were plenty of footholds and handholds. But the side was really steep so I had to rest a little bit. The rock formations are pretty dang awesome. It's a lot of limestone and very craggy and has a lot of caves. I took some pictures so of course I will show you. I had to sit on my butt going all the way down and I had no problem with that. I didn't kill myself and that is an accomplishment ladies and gentlemen. Halfway down, on my butt, I hear, "If you like Pina Coladas, And getting caught in the rain, If you're not into yoga..." OH!! my phone!!! It was Ruth (Jason's sister) and her boys and they sang Happy Birthday to me. It was cool and I got a good rest so I could get down the mountain. Jason didn't climb because his toe has been bothering him, so we met up and had our picnic. Yum. Then we drove around the park and saw some cool camping sites that would be cool during the fall. Anybody interested? Then we saw a gorgeous view of southern Oklahoma. The pic doesn't do it justice.

I really don't know what this plant life is called, except gross!

Today my arms are very sore. The legs are fine but the arms...ouch. It was so worth it though. It really was exhilarating to get to the top. It reminded me of all the times our family would go to the Buffalo River and camp out and all the times we went to Devil's Den and hiked the trail and explored Devil's Den cave. Ah, the good times...and we'll have to do it again!

All in all I really did have a good birthday and now the real adventure begins next Monday with us going back to school. I will be introduced as Mrs. McMullen to the Sulphur High School and begin my orientation. I've already had dreams of my first day and they have been interesting. I will be teaching Geography, US History and Psychology. Whoo hoo!! NO cheerleading duties, NO junior class duties. I'm sooooo excited about it. This is a bigger school and therefore a little more organized, hopefully :D I love structure and perform well in such an environment. I think that's about it and I'm sure I will be posting what happens after my first day with the kiddos. I'm super excited now there is less subjects to teach and I can really focus on the classes and being interactive with the kids.

Until next time!! Syanora!!!

PS: Has anybody been watching "I Survived a Japanese Game Show?" I LOVE IT!!!

Misadventures of J & J...

2008-07-24T15:22:00.006-05:00

Ok, it's time I told you about our honeymoon...and here we go...

Saturday 7/5: We headed up to OKC to Jason's bud Dawg's 4th of July cookout. We had a great time hanging out with old friends, catching up on times, missing friends out loud, and poking fun at each other from time to time. Good food, good times. After that, it was off to NW Arkansas to stay the night at my mom's place. We ended up driving through a downburst halfway between Fort Smith and Fayetteville...FUN. Made it safely, watched the lightning show, and called it a night.

Leaving Saturday 7/5

Sunday 7/6: Got up, went to church, ate a good lunch, took a nap, and then headed to the airport. As soon as we arrived, US Airways told us that our flight to Charlotte was delayed because our jet was still in Charlotte stuck on the ground. Evidently, a line of thunderstorms was going through at the time and the airport closed down till the weather moved through. When it finally got up in the air to head towards us, it was late enough that we'd end up missing our connection flight for Ft. Lauderdale. Soooo, they rescheduled us for a flight the next morning from NW Ark. to Chicago O'Hare to Fort Lauderdale. We called mom back to tell her to come pick us up so we can try again tomorrow. Good thing we had an extra day built in before our boat left for the Bahamas!

Monday 7/7: Got up waaaay early, got to the airport early, only to find out that this time, our plane WAS there at the airport, but was having maintenance issues! So, American decided to get us there by going from NW Arkansas to Dallas-Fort Worth (yeah, we're closer to DFW...sheesh) to Fort Lauderdale. Take off, land smoothly at DFW on a very short flight. FIVE HOUR LAYOVER....crap. Then, a 3 hour flight to Fort Lauderdale..... However, we started running into thunderstorms near Panama City and especially around Tampa/St. Petersburg, so we had to alter our flight plan a little, run down the west coast of Florida to avoid the weather, find a 'gap' in the storms, and then descend for the airport. A little bumpy, but made it with no problems. Got to the airport and waited for our hotel shuttle to arrive from just 2 miles away. Took the guy an HOUR to pick us up. Made it to the hotel, checked in, ate at Kelly's Landing (good New England food), then came back and crashed for the night. It stormed pretty heavy around 10-11 that night, but we were so out of it, we just opened an eyelid, mumbled about it, and went right back to sleep.

Tuesday 7/8: Woke up again way too early in the morning...went to Port Everglades and started checking in our stuff for the cruise over there. Waited an hour or so on the boat for departure, then finally got underway. The boat ride lasted about 5 hours or so....they fed us breakfast and lunch buffets, which were pretty tasty. Jason and I won some trivia game contest and took home a brand new water bottle! LOL Cheapskates! We were traveling against the sea current, so the boat ride was a bit choppy at times.....choppy enough to make Jason nauseous, but not completely sick. It took an hour and a half to disembark from the boat and get through government customs, then a taxi took us to our hotel....which was a van stuffed with about 9-10 of us, plus baggage, with no air conditioning.....FUN. The hotel we stayed at, Island Palms, was in downtown Freeport...right next to the Hospital and Police Department. However, if we wanted to go to the shopping, most restaurants, and the beach....we were going to have to take a taxi. Taxis run $6 per person one-way. Guess what we spent most of our money on??? The hotel was alright, but part of the deal was trying to get you to show up to some presentation on buying a timeshare at their sister resort. We told them we would try to go to the presentation tomorrow *wink wink*. We settled in, ate dinner at a nearby Wendy's, walked back to the hotel, and crashed out.

Wednesday 7/9: We decided to avoid the timeshare presentation and went shopping. First, we went to the Port Lucaya Marketplace and browsed around the shops there. They had little boutiques that reminded me of state fair-type vendors and some nice jewelry stores and things. Jason's favorite find was the Harley Davidson store! :-) We had a nice breakfast at Cally's, got our drinks on at a corner bar, and scoped out the marina. We then headed out to the International Bazaar, which was another large marketplace. However, this place was nearly a ghost town. Two nearby hotels were fenced up and boarded up and the marketplace itself was over half-abandoned itself...only a handful of shops open. It was nearly creepy how quiet and sparse that place was. There was one Asian shop open that did make the trip worthwhile...stocked up on our Bruce Lee memorabilia. :-) We then decided that we were close enough to our hotel, so we decided to walk the nearly 1-2 miles back to the hotel. High 80s...high humidity....mmmhmmm....that was a workout. Made it back, swam a little, then went out to a Mediterranean restaurant to sample some good seafood and try out a local delicacy called fried conch. Pretty good. Walked over to the Isle of Capri casino and wasted 5 bucks or so, then headed back to the hotel and crashed out.

At Port Lucaya Marketplace after our
Bahama Mama and Peach Daiquiri

Thursday 7/10 (Bahamian Independence Day): Most places were closed, but a good handful of shops were still open. Tried to go snorkeling, but found out a bit later after our arranged time that not enough people signed on to make the trip. Our guide felt bad, so he picked up us, and took us to our hotel's sister resort on the beach for free. He told us he would get us set up for tomorrow before we had to go back to Florida. Kewlio. The beach was nice.....it was cool to look out there and see nothing but ocean in the horizon, with a cargo ship thrown in here and there, and walk in a grit-free sand. The water was as warm as I thought it would be, but in all honesty, a lot of it reminded me of my trips as a kid to the lake. However, Mr. Numbnuts himself...(Jason called himself this), didn't but any sunblock on his pasty white legs. Yep, he paid for that mistake and it took over a week for it to go away. We took a shuttle back to the hotel, swam in the pool a little bit, then decided to save some money by walking to KFC for dinner, then crashed out for the night.

The beach at our sister hotel.

Friday 7/11: Got up, packed up, and checked out. Waited on our guide, called, found out that this snorkeling trip didn't make either. CRAP. Ate breakfast at the hotel, sat around, read by the pool, played ping-pong.....killed time basically. Took a taxi to the port, went through customs, and waited awhile till we finally left. The trip back was much smoother since we were traveling with the currents and the cloud cover made for a great sunset. Dinner was good and we enjoyed this cruise more than the first. Played 4 bucks on the slot machines in the boat's casino and came out with 40 bucks. That would come in handy for our flight tomorrow. Made it to the port, waited an hour before we could disembark, then FLEW through customs, waited 20 minutes for our hotel shuttle, then finally made it to bed by 1 am. That was good because......

About to get on the boat to head back to Ft. Lauderdale

Sunset from our boat.

Saturday 7/12: Got up at 4:30, left at 5, got to the airport 10 minutes later. We walk in and there is a HUGE LINE at the US Airways counter. This can't be good. Find out that all the computer terminals are down and they're having to write boarding and luggage passes by hand. (wait for it....) She sees that we are flying from Ft. Lauderdale to Charlotte to NW Arkansas in Fayetteville....she notices the Fayetteville on the paper and writes FAY on the luggage and our passes. We do make our flight to Charlotte with no problems and by the way, their airport is super nice. Rocking chairs all over the place, a NASCAR store, heck, even a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory! We notice as we are walking to our flight all the way on the other side of the airport that US Airways also flies to Fayetteville, NC. Hmmmmm.... After a short layover, we fly out to NW Arkansas and make it back safely with no problems. Boy, are we glad to be home! My dad comes to pick us up and all we need now is our luggage. Bet you can't guess what happened?!?!? Yep. We're in Fayetteville, AR (XNA). Our luggage is in Fayetteville, NC (FAY). They tell us that they will send the luggage tomorrow on the next available flight over. So, we stay at my mom, go visit dad and have a cookout for his birthday, dodge some rough weather, then go back to mom's place and crash.

Sunday 7/13: Slept in.....we needed it. Snuck in some breakfast and had a good lunch as well. Called, called, called, got the runaround....found out they didn't send our luggage yet. Why in the heck not?!?!?! They tell us that they'll try again tomorrow and hopefully we'll get it. Grrr.....they're about to get something from me.

Monday 7/14: Slept in again...trying to find out information....find out nothing. Get a call from US Airways around noon. They tell us that the luggage should be in Charlotte for the last flight to XNA and that it'll take two hours to deliver it to us so we should have our baggage back by midnight. We decide to chill out and catch a matinee: Hellboy II. Decent movie. Go to Backyard Burgers for dinner. Get a call from US Air. The peeps at Fayetteville, NC got our baggage to Charlotte faster than they expected, got it on an earlier flight to XNA and it was there at the airport waiting to be delivered to us! FINALLY!!! CLEAN CLOTHES!!! That dood delivered it to us at 8:30ish that night, dropped them off, and hightailed it right out of there. Guess he knew better than to stick around and try to answer our questions. Finally unstressed and finally get a decent night's sleep.

Tuesday 7/15: Leave Fayetteville, AR and make it to McAlester to eat lunch with my parents. Spent a good hour with them, got back on the road, and finally made it back to Ardmore by 4.

Summary: I don't think we will be using US Airways again. I'm more of an American Airlines girl, just because I've used them so much. They were pretty decent to us....the US Airways people at XNA were top-notch despite the other junk. Timeshares and people that try to sell them stink. Grand Bahama Island was nice and relaxing, but the aftereffects of previous hurricanes are taking a long time to heal. The taxi drivers were the nicest and friendliest people we met there on the island, but they got expensive really quick. When we go back, we'll probably go to Nassau instead. This was the first time I've ever had my baggage lost, and I pray to God that it will be the last.

All in all, it was eventful. It was stressful. It was aggravating. It was relaxing. It was comical. It was a blur. It was a good time. Thanks to our family for making this vacation happen for us!

*This is an edited piece that actually Jason wrote but I edited to make it sound like it was coming from me. :)

Live in the Moment

2008-07-03T08:53:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm living for the next thing that happens...something that will be happening in the future. I should live in the present, don't you think? I'm happening now...not 10 minutes from now. Anyway...a lot of things will be happening in my future, and I feel like I'm just laying around waiting for them to happen. Don't worry out there in blog land...I have a list of things to do, like always but, not too too motivated to do them right now. PLUS I felt just awful yesterday and didn't do diddly squat. Tuesday night, I felt really sore and achy, almost like flu symptoms...well when I woke up yesterday...more flu symptoms so I just laid there for a good while. Lunch helped a lot, especially when your husband brings it to you!!! :D Then I dragged myself into the shower and felt a little better too. Guess what...I'm good to go today!!! Weird, huh!?

So what's been going on since the wedding? Well...I got a new job. I've been hired on at Sulphur High School to teach Government/Geography (one semester each), a US History course and Psychology...better get ready kids...the psycho is back!!! (and better than ever!) I've cut down on my preps (THANK YOU!!!) and don't have to do cheerleading or Junior class sponsor! Sounds like a dream job, but wait!! it gets better! Jason teaches at Sulphur too!!! *woo wooo* He's gonna let me ride with him!!! *woo wooo* We will save on gas!!! *woo wooo* We are both super excited. Eventually we will probably move up there and that will save on even more gas. Let us do one thing at a time, people!!!!

I got my ring back. It makes such a difference!!! It's weird, but it is awesome to wear the ring your husband gave you. I went and bought stuff from Bed Bath and Beyond with all the gift cards we got. That was fun!!! Didn't have to spend a dime and I still have a little left on the card! Yippee!! I HAVE to write my thank you cards...Its a monumental task and I just am dreading it but I want to have most of it done before we go to the Bahamas....which we leave on Saturday for. Eeeeek!!!

Yes, we are definitely ready for the Bahamas, whether the Bahamas are ready for us or not!!!! So instead of blogging about all the stuff I haven't been doing in the now...why don't I go do it...now!!!

Love ya,
Jessica

PS: Wedding pictures are in so if you want to take a gander, click here.

...Cause I'm a Dork Fish....!!!

2008-06-23T17:36:00.007-05:00

You are asking your self....why would she call herself a dorkfish? Yeah, well here's the reason...I decided to go lay by the pool for a little while to get some sun before Jason and I go to the Bahamas. You'd think that after years of burning myself I would know better but apparently not. I thought I wouldn't be out there too long so I wouldn't put any sunscreen on except my nose and knees. 50spf. I'm a cooked lobster. My arms, upper chest and legs (except the knees)!!! OH!! and half my face....the lower half. I wore sunglasses and a hat and sunscreen on my nose...don't forget that. So right now I'm in a little bit of pain. I've aloed up and tried not to wear anything on the legs and other burnt parts of my body. I'm a dorkfish!!! and there is NO WAY I'm going to shave my legs for a few days. Sorry, Jason!!!

Speaking of Jason...he's my husband now... :D Cool to say!! I'm a wife!!! Yippeee!!! I do feel a little different. Except my ring is being soldered together so I have a temporary one on my finger. :( Hopefully it will be done by this Saturday. Here's what our rings look like:

We are also waiting on our wedding photos and they should be online very soon. We will let you know so you can look!!! Here's a group shot of our wedding party!!! FUN!!!!

We did have a blast and it was a little bit of a blur and not enough time with family and friends!!! But here's how the whole shindig went down:

Tuesday, June 10th:
Mom arrives and we hang out and have pot roast.

Wednesday, June 11th:
Mom and I go crazy shopping. Got some goooood stuff including shoes, capris, dress, sunglasses, purse and shirts...
Jason, Mom and I went to El Tapitios for some good Mexican food. We also rent some movies: Charlie Wilson's War and Juno; both were good.
While watching movies, Mom and I tied little ribbons on the bubbles and made a list of things to do on Thursday before we left for Arlington.

Thursday, June 12th:
Mom and I leave for Arlington after doing all the things on our list. I'm having a little bit of anxiety over the "rehersal" dinner. I wanted to get everyone's order in before we got there so we wouldn't have to wait so long!! People also started to arrive, which was fun. Mandy and the girls got there and we all went swimming. Pat and Alex got there soon after. So much fun!!! Pat got a portable internet device and played with it A LOT!!!! We decided we needed to go to Wal-Mart and so he found one but it actually took us a lot longer than we expected. It turns out there was a Wal-Mart about 5 minutes in the opposite direction that we could have gone to. Oh well...it was an adventure and I got to hang with my brother and Alex!!!!

Friday, June 13th:
Actually didn't do much in the morning....I laid there texting Jason every five minutes asking him to bring stuff :D I didn't mean to forget some clothes and contacts...honest!!! He arrived around noon and Jason and Drew (who arrived Thursday night) went to go pick up my Aunt Paula and Uncle John. Angie and Chris arrived and then Angie, Mom and I went to go get nails done...Mandy came a little later! That was fun but I still had some anxiety about this dinner thing!!! I still needed to come up with some orders. I actually got everyone's order except, get this, JASON's!!!!! I felt really bad!! How could I forget him??? I honestly don't know. But by the time we got to the restuarant and I got to direct the waiters at who had what, everything was fine! It turned out extremely well and so much fun!!! It was great to have so much family there! After the dinner there was a girly get together in my room. We had a blast and laughed a lot!!! I got some really nice things and just had a special special time. THANK YOU, ANGIE!!!!

I didn't have too much trouble getting to sleep, the only thing I regret was not washing my hair that night because my hair was not all that great the next day for up-dos. Oh well, it's over and can't do it again!!

Saturday, June 14th:
The big day!!! Got up and went downstairs to get some breakfast and Jason was there, so I sat with him. My cousins were there too so I got to visit with them for a bit. After breakfast the girls getting their hair done all piled in the car and went to the salon. That was fun (except my crappy hair thing). Then we went straight to the chapel where we stood around and then rehearsed (girls first, then guys), got dressed and got married!!! The reception was fun and beautiful. It went by very fast!! We walked out under bubbles...very fun...and got into a car with several sayings on it... such as GO HOGS and HONK!!!, JUST MARRIED and BRIDE AND GROOM. So much fun!!!!! We dropped off the tuxes and headed for our hotel near Six Flags. Wish we had the Garmin thingy cause we could see our hotel, we just couldn't get to it. We finally did and literally crashed into bed. We were so tired!!! We did get up to Jason's stomach alarm clock...we did plan on going to a German restuarnt in Ft. Worth, called Edelweiss. It was good and had good atmosphere, I just wish Jason was willing to go out on the dance floor and do the chicken dance with me!!! ;) Oh well....we still have the Bahamas...

Sunday, June 15th:
We got up, did breakfast and waited for Pat and Alex cause they were going to go to Six Flags with us! That was very very fun. We lathered up on the 50SPF and I missed a spot but didn't fry too bad. It was freaking HOT!!! That was a lot of fun... Jason and I had reservations for Texas de Brazil in Ft. Worth that night so we got cleaned up and dressed up and ate up, cause it was GOOOOOOD!!!!! Yum!!!!

Monday, June 16th:
We packed up all our stuff and headed home to recoup before Jason had to go back to summer school on Tuesday (he was teaching...). We did open all our presents and that was fun.

Now it's on to married life...and what that will bring...I'm excited about it! However, I have come to realize that having nothing to do at home while your husband is at work is very boring and I've had some depression about it. I'm not sure what to do. I need things to do and NOT housework. I do go swimming so that is good (but not since the sunburn...ouch!). I definitely think I will do some volunteering/working part time next summer. I need to get back into some hobbies that do not require TV or computer, something outside the house...

Anyway...I know this was a long blog, but it was really for me to remember everything so I wouldn't forget!!! I'm super excited about the Bahamas for our real honeymoon!!! You can bet there will be blog about THAT!!!

For those of you who were at the wedding and in the wedding....THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. It was sooo very special that you were there and I couldn't have done it without you! You all looked fabulous!!! Love you!!!

She posted another blog...

2008-06-08T00:24:00.005-05:00

I know, I know....it's like I have more time or something!!! Well this week was interesting!!! I'll have to tell you about Monday a little later...I'll keep you posted...!!!

Tuesday I started a teacher institute called Great Expectations, which I loved!!!! Great Expectations is a professional development program that provides teachers and administrators with the skills needed to create harmony and excitement within the school atmosphere, elements that are basic for inspiring students to pursue academic excellence. With a focus on the human quality of teaching and learning, Great Expectations provides renewal and inspiration for teachers who may have lost their way and forgotten why they became teachers in the beginning. (I didn't write that, the website did.)

Anyway, in a nut shell, GE taught me how to be humane to younger humans!!! It's weird but that's essentially it. AND also how to teach any subject matter using different methods. It was awesome since I was a first timer, I had to go to the methodology class to get the foundation down before I can take elective classes which focus on very specific subjects. Anyway, the methodology classes usually have 30-40 people and we only had 4 which was AWESOME!!! We really got to know everyone on a personal basis and heard some great stories. It's also a small world because our instructor, Tim, is from McAlester, OK where Jason is from. I mentioned Tim's name to Jason and he started laughing. It turns out Jason's sister is very good friends with Tim's sister. It was a cool connection. It was also an emotional experience. Tim found out his mother has breast cancer this week. Keep him and his mother in your prayers. That aside, I'm really excited about starting the new school year!!!!

So that took up some time this week. It was all day from 8-4, Tuesday through Friday. Today we got to sleep in and rest. I had a lot of things I wanted to do, including swim but that didn't work out. I did get to run some major errands. I was going to get my dress to the cleaners but I got there too late so I decided to make an appointment to get my hair trimmed and highlighted. She couldn't fit me in until next Thursday but that was pushing it. I got in my car and stopped and went inside again and said if she had an opening today and she said yes!!! Whooppie!!! So I got my hair did. We were the only ones in the salon and I think she talked more than me!! No big surprise, though. I told her I was getting married and she said she was too. We both met our future husbands on eHarmony... and so that was a big talking point!!!

Speaking of hair. The thing that was a realization was what my hair dresser said. She had already been married twice. The first divorce being her mistake and the second, the husband was apparently just awful. What she said about the first divorce being her mistake was this. She believed that the husband was there to take care of her and that's the way she acted. She was the one who left him. She learned that she had to chip in too. But she realized that way too late and has actually apologized to her kids dad. I thought that took guts. I may not have agreed with her on everything she said but I understood that expectation. While watching Return to Me tonight, I realized I too want to be taken care of. This is not a bad thing. But if you don't reciprocate, then there's a problem. I can't be waited on hand and foot. I wouldn't actually want that either. I want to be able to do things independently too. However, one of the greatest things that Jason does for me is carry in the groceries. I can totally do this. I brought in my own groceries for over five years up the stairs in Waco!! But it is great to have someone else do this for me! Thank you, Jason!!!

But wait!!! Hold the press!!! Before I even got out of the apartment with my dress to go to the cleaners, something else exciting happened. I open the door holding my dress above my head and for some reason I look down to my left and I see a tail wiggling. I'm thinking to my self, that's one big lizard! It had faint orange markings like diamonds on it. I step out a little more and realize it is a GIANORMOUS snake. I calmly step back inside the apartment and freak out. That's what Jason would call it. I put down the dress and told him. He said he couldn't see it. I was trying to call emergency maintenance. He still couldn't see it. I cautiously opened the door and it wasn't where I left it...it had moved down a little further and this time I could see its head and THEN Jason saw it. Maintenance calls back and I tell him about the problem and he says he will call animal control. I told him it looked like a two footer. The snake proceeds to crawl further out into the open and it is not two feet long...it's more like three to three and a half feet long. HOLY MOLY!!!! I still wanted to get to the cleaners (before I found out it was already closed) and it was far enough out for me to walk in the opposite direction and that's what I did. I let Jason deal with Animal Control. Whew!!! That was exciting!!! Drew, my brother would have freaked more than I did!!! Animal control came while I was getting my hair done but they never found it.

I know what I'll be dreaming about tonight!!! AND I'll be alone. Jason is in OKC having a bachelor party. That's why I'm writing this at 12:45am, plus I drank some caffeine today. I'm probably going to play a round of Age of Empires III after I post this too. So I think that's it for now. I'm really excited for the festivities to begin!!! It will start with my mom coming Tuesday night, and then shopping on Wednesday and then to Arlington on Thursday! Yay!!!!! What else...I dont' know...I'm getting a little nervous I think. It might be the snake and it might be the fact I watched Silence of the Lambs tonight and then Return to Me while flipping to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I'll keep you posted whether or not I dreamed about anything...

Toodles!!
Jessica

The Weekend...

2008-06-01T09:35:00.005-05:00

Well hidyho!!! Can you believe it? I'm writing ANOTHER blog!!! Friday was a big day for us. We traveled to Arlington for a couple of things: the marriage license!!!!! That took no time at all, Jason getting his hairs cut, and me looking for a place to get our manis and pedis taken care of the day before the wedding!!! There were some interesting conversations throughout the trip and I think Jason forgot about looking for a nail place and that frustrated him a tad bit.

We then headed down to Waco for two events. The first being one at the Dr Pepper Museum. Jason and I didn't go to the night event because 1) we were too tired, 2) it cost $200 per plate, 3) we wanted to go eat with Angie and Chris. So that's what we did! We met Angie and Chris at Carino's (not Johnny's anymore, apparently he left the company). Good food, great conversation!! Afterwards we went to Starbucks to get something and not a second later after we sat down with our drinks did we hear a screeeeech, BANG! I was in the position to see most of the terrible car wreck. After the bang I see a white van flip over and land on it's side, only stopped by an SUV who was waiting at the stoplight. I caught a glimpse of a green car careen over the curb and almost crash into the Jack in the Box fast food place. OMG!!!!! This took place in a matter of three seconds. I stood up and said "Oh my gosh! Someone call 911!" This was a huge intersection and and there were a lot of people outside who already had their phones out. Hopefully they were calling 911 instead of their friends. The police, firefighters and ambulances all came within in a matter of minutes and we rubbernecked for the next 15 minutes while drinking our mint frappachinos.

So after that Jason and I went back to Mary Beth's place to crash because the next morning was the main event. Ribbon cutting of the new exhibit that I helped begin. Breakfast and tours. I talked about future exhibits in the new building. Keep in mind there were past presidents of the Dr Pepper Company and multi-millionaires peppered about the place. This was a BIG shindig!!! Not only was it a ribbon cutting but also a fundraising opportunity. The Friday night gala we didn't go to had Lee Greenwood there for entertainment. God Bless America!

Anywhooo, it was awesome to be there and see all my friends from work and talk, talk, talk talk... :D The other part of the weekend was to go to a wedding that afternoon. It was for a PEO sister and therefore I got to see all my PEO sisters and that was a lot of fun!!!! Some of them are coming to our wedding only 13 days away!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!! So after that, we came home and talked furniture, as in we need a new bed kind of thing.

The End!!! The weekend is not over yet, so I may update this later on...if anything exciting happens!! Don't get your hopes up!

Later taters,
J

17 Days and Counting...!!!

2008-05-28T09:09:00.002-05:00

Ok...it seems like a lifetime from now but there are only seventeen days till the wedding... EEEKKK!!! There are a couple of things I still need to do, but I've pretty much wrapped up the major parts. I'm hoping the cake looks nice and the bouquets turn out nice too. There's really not much I can do about it now!!!! As you may know, I am a list person and I've created lists out the wazoo. I now need to mail them to the parties who need them. I'm also listening to the reception music and I'm smiling...it's going to be a lot of 80s music, but also a mixture of all genres.

So what else has been happening....well, SCHOOL'S OUT!!!!!! YAYAAY!!! Don't get me wrong, I loved teaching but, dang, you've got to have a break from all those whiny, impatient kids sometimes. The last week seemed like it draaaaaged along. We made it through, though! All in all the students I taught were very good. There are some I worry about though. That's what happens when you invest in their lives. Sometimes you can't help but say, "I can't wait until they are in the real world because THEN is when their education starts." Some just don't have a clue. But then again...I was probably a little bit like that too. Ok, so school is semi out of the way...there are a couple of things I still have to do such as cheerleading stuff and a week long seminar called Great Expectations to help my interactive component of teaching.

What else...I FINALLY joined the YMCA so I can start swimming again. I miss it and my body misses it too but my body has decided to revolt for a little bit. I went swimming last Thursday and Friday and I think I pulled my neck muscle. I have to admit I did not stretch very well on Thursday and I think that's what did it. So I've been an "invalid" taking ibuprofen and sleeping with a heating pad. It's been pretty painful...it's getting better, I hope!!!

Last Friday started Memorial Day weekend for us and we trekked on up to McAlester, OK to have a huge family reunion on Jason's Dad's side. Both his brothers came in from Texas and California and their families too. All in all there were about 31 people at my parents-in-law's house. Fortunately they didn't all spend the night...that would have been interesting!!! We had a lot of fun just sitting outside under the trees in the countryside talking to cousins and aunts and uncles. The bad part was, of course, bugs. Honestly they weren't bad. I didn't really spray the last day and that's when I got most of my chigger bites and one tick which I didn't find until Tuesday!!!!! I'm sure I didn't look very appealing with my hair up because it was hot and humid and the bug bites on my FACE!!!! Ugh!!! They're still there, too. They better disappear soon or I'm gonna get REAL depressed!! Anyway!!! We had great food, played washers with nephews, fished in the pond they have, and ate...did I mention that already? There was also a joint birthday party for Jason's mom and Uncle Ricky who are both turning 60 this year. That was fun. There were a lot of gag gifts I was even embarrassed about!! Anywhooo we had a blast and it was great to see family together.

The next few things on my agenda...and there is an agenda/list is mostly wedding stuff. I like taking a break from school but I need things to do...there just isn't that much on TV that is enticing and I'm starting to feel like a slob. I'm going swimming again this morning so pray that my neck will work itself out!!

LAST BUT NOT LEAST!!!! Pat is in the good ole' US of A!!!! He landed at Ft. Dix early this morning from Kuwait via Hungary and Iceland...praise the Lord and Hallelujah!!! :D

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks:

At the Sulphur Prom

T.C. the center of attention.
His shirt says, "Yes, girls. I'm single"
He won't be single for long...he's so cute!!!!

Here's TC and his momma, Ruth!

Watch out TC, you got some competition!!!?!!!

What a loving uncle, ya'll have!!

All the kiddos that were there!

The three brothers and sister!!
Ricky, Brenda, Archie and Don

Ticked and ticking down the days...

2008-05-03T00:11:00.004-05:00

First of all I'm ticking off the days until school is over and then the weeks and days until the wedding... I'm very excited. I went to bed early tonight but woke up about an hour later and couldn't get back to sleep so I decided to listen to some music and look at my bridal portrait pictures. I've decided that I am pretty and sometimes even beautiful!! Thanks to Jennifer who took my pictures. You will have to either email me to get the link or wait until after the wedding because I don't want Jason to see me in the dress!!! :D

Anyway, the reason I'm ticked or I guess offended or bothered by the fact I had a student call me hateful. Not to my face mind you, but rather I heard it from her mom this afternoon. Great way to start off the weekend. Without going into too much detail I will just say that I had a student who, in my point of view, did not make the effort to find out when cheerleading tryouts were and came to me this afternoon and asked if she could tryout. Today was the day of tryouts!! I told her no. I didn't see any effort or responsibility on her part to find out the information. Especially when I had given her all the information the day after the announced informational meeting which she missed due to another school activity. It's not a problem if someone is going to miss something for another school related activity but one should make arrangements ahead of time and not the day after. Then she tells me this afternoon that she didn't have time to read the information (in the two week period she had it). So that took all of 60 seconds to tell her no and for her to storm out of my classroom. It was another thing to have her mother come (in the middle of tryouts) and have very strong words to say to me in front of all the other candidates and accuse me of intentionally trying to keep her daughter from trying to tryout... Ok, so I went into more detail than I said, but I could write more, but I won't. I ended up "solving the problem" by putting it back into the hands of the student. If she wants to tryout, she's going to have to come to me and ask. We'll see what happens next week.

In my other life....Mary Beth called me from Denver on Thursday to tell me a funny incident that occurred at the annual American Association of Museums conference. This is a national conference , by the way, that thousands of people go to. Ok, so she tells me she attends a session about technology and museums. This is what both of us did while I was at the Dr Pepper Museum. Remember the video blogs? Ok, now the people who chaired and presented at this session were some major players in the museum field. One from the Cleveland Museum of Art, a lady from the Weatherhead Experience Design Group, Inc., Seattle, WA and a gentleman who is the Head of Administration from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA. Yes, well to make a long story short, we made it into the session. Yes, they showed our first ever video blog we created for the museum and the blooper reel from the movie we made for the 10-2-4 Dr Pepper Collectors Convention. Oh...my...goodness.... I laughed so hard, Jason came rushing in the office because he thought something was wrong. Yes, folks Mary Beth and I have made it to the big time. We are ready to sign autographs and any acting contracts that I know will come our way. Yeah, right.....LOL!!! Mary Beth thought she should say something so she stood up and introduced herself and everybody loved it. She said the chairperson saw Mary Beth walk in to the session and almost fell out of her seat. She had no idea MB would be there. I would have given money to have been there!!!! Oh My! THAT made my Thursday.

So this weekend will be wonderful, if I can get to sleep that is...I don't have to be anywhere or go do anything. All I need to do is rest and grade some papers. Yup. That's it. And that's all I'm going to do. Well, let's try working on this sleep thing. I will talk with you later!!!

Later Taters,
Jessi

PS: Don't be hatin' because you haven't been the star of a museum conference session... ;)

A Different World...

2008-04-15T20:19:00.006-05:00

...from where you come from!!

Remember that TV show? It was a spin off of The Cosby Show when Denyse went to college. I thought it was pretty cool. However, the different world I'm thinking of is something entirely different. This weekend Jason and I went around Oklahoma City, doing things we haven't done. We went to Pops a convenient store that has over 500 sodas in it and a great diner. Yummy.

I also wanted to see a movie so we went to the theater. There wasn't a whole lot of choices at the time we went except Street Kings with Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker. I heard it was intense and good so we went to see it. I knew it was going to be intense and violent. After all it was about dirty cops and seeking "justice." While I was coming out of the theater I said, "I'm glad I don't live in that kind of world." It's odd, though, I actually like seeing those kind of movies. Not because I think they are cool but just because they are out there. I've seen Hustle and Flow which is a rough movie and others like 8 Mile, Crash, etc... again not because they are cool but because it's a dose of reality. I know they are movies but they are based on experience. If someone thought it up, then someone has seen it or heard about it. This evening, for instance, I watched Law & Order: Special Victims Unit where there were people selling children from Africa as slaves to the United States. How can someone think about doing this? It boggles the mind, or at least my mind.

I think my point is that sometimes I can't believe the things people do to people and how blessed I am personally to not be in or even touch some of those situations. I'm talking poverty that can lead to prostitution, drugs, violence, etc... I thank God everyday for the home I grew up in and the influences of my parents and grandparents and friends. Granted not all my experiences have been great but not so terrible I couldn't ever recover. I don't know if I'm making sense to anyone, but it makes sense to me. I can't be naive about what's going on out there but I can't let the world burden me either. We live in a chaotic, crazy world. I'm glad I know someone who has already taken care of my life for me and the lives of others and that would be Jesus Christ. I am an empathetic person and I cry every time I watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition because I can feel for those people who deserve a new home. I do NOT, however, know how Jesus can stand just watching us do the things we do and not banish us all. He is the most empathetic and experienced one out there who has had all the world's hurts on him. WOW! I can't even fathom that.

That leads me to the next thing we went to see which was the Oklahoma Memorial. I have never been there and I wanted to see it. It was one of the most peaceful places I have ever been, especially in a city. The event happened 13 years ago yet still impacts people today. The monument is beautiful but what I really liked (if you can like that sort of thing) is the the statue outside of the memorial. It is of Jesus weeping.

Again, how does someone think up something to do like blow up a government building and kill 186 people including children. It is something that should make us all weep. Look how far we've gotten in the quest for humanity!!! But all that to say once again. I am at peace (most of the time ;) because of what Jesus said to his disciples (us included):

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Look folks!!! He says he's already overcome the world. He said that 2000 years ago in the past tense. He's already taken care of all the bad stuff. What hope and peace that brings me. Yes, there is still suffering out there and there is a reason but I won't reiterate about why we need to suffer. You can read a previous blog for that here.

We just need to believe and be reminded of that daily because we are reminded daily of how awful life can be. Don't worry, I know life can be awesome too. I just need to look at Jason and my nieces to be reminded of that too.

Peace in Christ to you and yours.

Love,
Jessica

An interior view of the exterior walls.

Can you see Jason? He's that short dude in front.

Close up of the bottle.

The happy couple!

Blah....

2008-04-05T08:47:00.004-05:00

Well there are a lot of fun things going on in my life, but I feel pretty blah at the moment. It's a come and go thing but it's a pretty constant come and go. Here's the thing. I've gained a lot of weight and it's because I'm bored and lonely. Yeah, lonely. I need some girl friends. I need a hobby that doesn't involve the computer, cooking or watching TV. I used to have a lot but it involved people. Mainly girls. I used to have a list of things I wanted to do in my life, but I can't seem to "find the time" or "have the money" to do them. I've always wanted to learn how to paint with watercolors and other mediums. I started to knit about 1000 years ago but I tackled a huge project and I now don't have the motivation to finish it. I've always wanted to learn karate/self-defense. I want to do a lot of things with my life but I can't seem to get off my lazy butt and do them. I have realized I am a people person. I need people. Yes, I have Jason and he's great and I love him. But he has his hobbies and he's not so much of a people person. I used to go to the movies and rent foreign films to "broaden my mind" but I don't do that now. I'm still reading though!!! Just finished a "preview" book for the school library called A Taste for Rabbit. It's very interesting. It's in a world where foxes, badgers, weasels and rabbits are sentient, or able to think and talk like people. There is universal law that says one can't eat prey who is sentient. The plot is about wanting to eat something but shouldn't because it has human characteristics...there's a moral in there somewhere. It's pretty cool. I think I will recommend it to the library.

Anywhoooo....I didn't write this blog so people can feel sorry for me. I've already gone through the "I feel sorry for myself" phase. What I need to do now is find something I enjoy doing so I won't get bored and won't be lonely so I won't eat!!! It's a vicious cycle!!!

Here are some things that have struck me recently (aside from all the lonely and bored crap):

There have been some MAJOR wildfires in Oklahoma. It's incredible and I've never seen anything like it. Driving home from school about once a week I see the ominous smoke "signals" and sometimes I've seen two or three in the same drive. Well, yesterday I had the day off and I drove over to Comanche to see Ruth and the boys and when I was on my way back I could see the smoke for miles. I kept getting closer and closer and realized that I will be driving by exactly where it will be (thank goodness not through the smoke, the wind was blowing it away from me). I actually got some pictures on my cell phone.

Now, there are going to be some major black spots left on the ground BUT it's so amazing that after a couple of weeks the grass has grown and it's greener than the other grass around it. That gives me a little hope for some reason. It tells me, yes, you might have to get burned sometimes but afterward you're stronger for it, or prettier or whatever...
Almost two months until Jason and I are married. I'm really excited about this!!!! Except the bridal portraits are giving me some trouble, but I'm sure I'll get it worked out.
What else...I'm sooooo excited about school being out!!! Don't get me wrong, I still love what I'm doing but I'm looking forward to this summer....hmmmmmm, don't have a clue why!!!!
I can't wait to go to the Bahamas!!!! AAAHHHHH A new adventure!
I got a hair cut...it's different and I like it. (Not right now, I haven't fixed it).

I think that will do me for now. Signing off!!!

Later taters,
Kitty

Grandma

2008-03-17T16:14:00.002-05:00

Just thought I would let you all know that my grandmother passed away this morning. The services will probably be on Thursday and Friday.

Impatience and Grandma

2008-03-16T11:30:00.006-05:00

Howdy people! It's been a month and I thought I would just write. Well, let me see...in random order. I bought Jason's ring last weekend. We also went to the OKC Auto Show. That was fun. And we also signed him up for his tux and the rest of the guys' tux. I've scheduled bridal portrait pictures in May. My dress is supposed to come tomorrow. I have my veil and headpiece. Invitations are done, just need to address the envelopes. Need to do a few more things such as thank you cards and stamps....BUT I'm on Spring Break and there will be time to do a few things.... YAY!

I am an impatient person, I have discovered. I guess I really didn't "discover" it, but may have just forgot about it. I, like many people, like to have things perfect. Perfect in the house, perfect in my life with Jason, but sometimes I forget that there are other people involved in my "perfect" life and they may not be at the same place I am and I get frustrated when they aren't!!! I need to remember I have to be patient for them to catch up or me to slow down or vice versa. That's probably the hardest part of being in a relationship, so far. But on the other hand I see people, namely Jason, being patient with me. :D As far as I am concerned he's been so patient with me, it's a wonder that he hasn't gone crazy yet!!! Either he has and hides it well or his pressure cooker takes a longer time to boil. Anyway, the point is that he is the best and willing to work with me, even if I think I'm the only one "working" on life issues. Men and women work differently. Whereas women are multi-taskers, in general, men tend to concentrate on one thing at a time. I read that somewhere. So, maybe none of this makes sense or even relative to you, but it does to me and therefore therapeutic to write.

Other things: My grandmother is doing poorly. She was put under hospice last week. She just doesn't want to eat or take her medicine anymore. She sleeps all the time, has no energy. Very unlike the grandma I used to know. But she's still my grandma and I feel guilty sometimes when I don't think of her the same way. I've been writing a poem about her and I'm not sure it's done yet but here it is. Disclaimer: She hasn't passed on yet.

Grandma

What can I say about her?
She was simply the best
Joyful and laughing
She now is at rest

One of my favorite things
was her carefree view
and zest for life
and her famous "whoo hoo!"

Art and books she loved to partake
Her pottery she didn't want us to break
Her poetry is truly inspiring
and takes me spiraling!

Grandma was, like all Grandmas, soft to touch
but when you did wrong, watch out
you might give a shout
when she took you to Yardstick City!

Grandma was full of energy
and created a lot of synergy
to do all the things she did
for me and her family.

The main thing I learned from her
and that you can be sure
is just to be yourself,
to laugh and play
to make a better day
for one another.

I will miss her.

History, epiphany and happy hearts day...

2008-02-17T15:26:00.002-06:00

Well, I had sort of an historical epiphany on Wednesday, I think it was. I was driving to work and I was thinking of why I love history so much and realized it has to do with people, really. I'm so intrigued at how events change peoples' lives but in reality it's people who change peoples' lives. No event in our history has effected or influenced no one. (Is that a real sentence?) Do you get my meaning? I'm not a big fan of when people say, but I'm just one person, what can I do? Every historical event in the world's history began with one person. Seriously, think about it. Eve influenced Adam, Ester influenced a king, Jesus influenced the entire world (one way or the other). Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke of Austro-Hungary, which began World War I. If you think about it, your character, your personality is based on historical events from thousands of years ago and those events will shape your future too. World War II effected my grandfather, his character and because of that event, influenced my father, who in turn has influenced me whether I know it or not. And it's not just one singular event. It's multiple events. Like Shrek said, "I'm like an onion, I have many layers." (Hopefully, I don't stink!) I don't know if you can feel how I feel about history. It's hard to explain but the world's history is about people influencing people and those people making decisions based on that influence positively or negatively. I love it. We are so intricate yet so simple at the same time and that hasn't changed over time. I believe it was like this at the beginning of time as well.

Anyway it was pretty emotional for me to realize that (and I could have been hormonal as well, so....). That's why I went into the education business. I love to teach people the interesting things as well as the important things and try to persuade those bored kids that history from a hundred years ago actually does have some bearing on what they do today. That is my mission in life...so there ya go!

Valentine's day was fun, although the last half of the school day was a waste. Students getting their valentines delivered to them and I'm anxiously waiting for mine which was supposed to be delivered to me too. It's been a long time since I got excited and felt it in my stomach. Ya know what I mean? I've never really had a Valentine's Day where I got something significant from a male (except my father). So this was fun. I got flowers, a teddy bear and some chocolate from Godiva. Seriously...ya can't go wrong with that combination!! I planned a themed dinner of Asian cuisine, and I was excited to cook it. Spring rolls, fried rice, Chinese spareribs, steamed fresh green beans and green tea. I think it was a hit. We also had some sparkling grape juice. Yummy. I wasn't feeling great, but all in all it was a pretty good day!!

Friday was Jason's last basketball game of the season, so I drove up to Sulphur and learned how to really shoot a basketball. Then I sat up in the "pressbox" with Jason while he announced. Both boys and girls won. Woot woot!

Saturday was pretty relaxing. We didn't do a lot. We watched the "We" channel which is having a wedding weekend, so I was pretty excited. I also finished the Save the Date cards, so I should be mailing those out tomorrow. Yippee!! One of my students asked when I was getting married last Thursday and I said June 14th and she said, Exactly four months from today!!" I'm sure my eyes got wide. AAAAHHHHHH!!!! It's less than four months from the wedding!!!! Oh, by the way, I was watching platinum weddings on "We" and I feel really good about how much our wedding costs. Seriously, $40,000 just for floral centerpieces on a couple of tables? Wow! Well, I guess if they can afford it....?

What else, not much else but laundry and, oh yes, the beginning of the NASCAR season today. Well laundry and lesson plans are calling me, so I must depart, for now....

Auf Wiederhoren!!!

Peas and carrots,
Jessica

Mid-February Update and some new finds!!!!!

2008-02-07T19:15:00.000-06:00

Hello one and all!!!

Hope you find yourself well. I'm pretty good right now. I'm waitin' on my fiance to come home so we can go eat! He's been battling parents at the always popular parent-teacher conferences. I experienced this last week, so I feel his pain.

Let's see...I think I will start off with my new finds. Well they aren't exactly new but they are to me. First, E.S. Posthumus is a pair of brothers who create this INCREDIBLE music but the only problem is they had only one album out for like a century!!! They kept telling us fans that there would be a new CD coming out very soon. Well it sorta dropped off my radar for awhile and yesterday I got an email (I'm on their list :) saying they had finally released it!!!! OH MY GOSH!!!! So I bought it today and am listening to it right now and it is heavenly, literally. The sound is like heaven if I could actually describe it like that. E.S.P. is orchestral in nature and chorale and world beat and contemporary all at the same time. It sounds weird, but I promise you it works!!! You probably have heard some of their stuff, you just didn't realize it. For you sports fans, they composed the theme song to the CBS NFL Sports (Rise to Glory). Also, if you watch the TV show "Cold Case", the theme song is called Nara from their first CD. They also have quiet a few movie previews showcasing their music such as Spiderman 2 and XXX: State of the Union. Yes, I know way too much. I don't care!!!

Artwork for the CD

Ok so go check them out!!!

The other two finds is actually what I thought was one person, Brett Dennen. He has awesome music with a great message. It's perky and folky and that genre makes me happy. His most popular one is Ain't No Reason. Well I got him confused with another artist who is on the new Kia Spectra commercial. Can't Get It Right is the song and Joe Purdy sounds very similar to Brett Dennen. So I'm going to have to invest in both these artists soon.

Those are my new music finds!!! Yay!

As far as my other life. It just seems like I go to work and come home, eat and veg. That's pretty much it but there are other things I've been doing too. Here they are in random order.

Patrick called me from Iraq on Tuesday! YAY!!! He seems to be doing all right, considering. He didn't talk much and so I rambled and that probably helped him just listening to "normal stuff." I hope so.
Mandy and the girls went to see Drew at Ft. Hood, TX where he is stationed. It sounded like they had a good time!!!
I've been getting some wedding stuff done, like printing out Save the Date cards, which hopefully soon will be mailed out!!! I've also been actually printing out the invitations. Now if I just can get the addresses of the people I'm supposed to invite!!! MOM!!!!
School is fine. We are definitely back in the swing of things. Waitin' for that Spring Break!!!
Updating my iPod as I type....
Dad came for a visit and we went to Turner Falls, bought and ate some fantastic fried pies off of I-35, and went through the Arbuckle Wilderness (tour of the exotic animals in your car). No exotic animals in the car, just drove through their habitat and feed the ones roaming around like the camels, deer, burros, geese, ostrich (very greedy) and so forth....very cool!!!!! It was like I was a little girl all over again.
I've started waking up at 5:30am to walk on the treadmill at the apartment complex. I've gained SEVERAL pounds since I've stopped swimming. I'm also trying to cut down on the portions of what I eat. Since I've started walking, I have noticed a slight change in the way my pants are fitting, so that's encouraging!!! It's incredible that I can even get up that early but apparently I can!
What else...nothing much else that I can think of at this moment...

If I think of anything I'll let you know!!!

Love ya'll and happy Friday (tomorrow)!!

Peace and Love,
Jess

December Wrap up and a Brand New Year!!!

2008-01-05T10:58:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year folks!!! It's been awhile since I've blogged but, hey, I've been busy, dang it!

Let's see, let's see.... December was a blur. Semester tests for the kids and basketball homecoming AND dance. Let's just say that 6th-8th graders are funny to watch. Semester tests rolled around and it was crazy trying to figure out who was exempt. It was sorta nice though, not as many students. HOWEVER, I took one of my students to the principal's office for the first time. Anyway, the day after semester tests is basically a free day. The students can show up if they want to, it doesn't count against them. I thought I would be cool and bring some movies to school and let them choose what they wanted to watch. I thought Star Wars would be a number one but nooooooooooo, it was SpongeBob SquarePants that they wanted. WOW!!! In the afternoon some the high school students brought their XBOX 360 and played Call of Duty. That was fun to watch. So when the last bell rang it was like being free of something and I skipped out to my car and drove merrily home. I baked a lot of cookies.The next day started our Christmas activities. We got packed and wrapped last minute presents and headed out to Comanche, OK to Jason's sister's place. We all piled in to their new van and took off for Wichita Falls, TX to do some shopping and it was crazy!!! But I enjoyed it. We ate at Olive Garden and had fun with our waiter. Drove home and fell promptly to sleep. The next day, I'm not sure what we did. We did go to Wal-Mart, twice. Also went to see National Treasure. Very fun! The next day Ruth got the boys and we went to church. The boys are always fun and we have a good time together. We played video games (Star Wars Lego).
We actually had Christmas on Christmas Eve morning and it was a blast. I thought Devon and Bryce were going to pass out. They got a Nintendo DS and they were pretty quiet after that. (Preoccupied, ya know). I made a haul, too. Da ng, I love Bed, Bath and Beyond!!! Our gifts we gave were our engagement pictures. I think that went over well.

TC in a Reindeer outfit eating my chocolate tin!!!

We drove back to our apartment that night and got ready for the next leg of our Christmas vacation on Christmas Day by doing laundry and what not.... The next day we drove to Fayetteville and spent time with Mom and Aunt Becky. Mom was having some outpatient surgery the next day so that's what I did. That night when Mom was all tucked in, Jason and I moved our headquarters to Dad's house and stayed there for the rest of the time. We were anticipating Pat's arrival for R&R on Saturday but had no clue when he would arrive. We actually got an update from him pe rsonally while he was in Ireland so we knew he was at least out of the Middle East on Friday night. In the meantime, Mom and I went to David's Bridal and ordered my shoes and got some swatches of the bridesmaids dresses while Jason went to Best Buy. Patrick arrived about 5:25pm at XNA regional airport and we were all there to greet him. It was awesome. That evening Jason and I went over to Drew and Mandy's to watch UFC on paperview. It was interesting. But it was really fun to be with same age people (even if we were the oldest people there). Pat and Alex stopped by and one of Drew's co-workers was there. However the girls had already gone to bed....dang...I really wanted to play with them. But oh, well. We were going to see them the next day.

Patrick arriving home. YAY!!!

Apparently Drew had a little too much to drink that night (after we were gone). We'll just leave it at that. Sunday was the big Christmas/Birthday shindig at Dad's. It was fun. Lots of wrapping paper. Here are some photos.

Emma, that's for catching butterflies, not Emmas!!! See, Alex is doing it right!!!

Jason and I came back on Monday. Happy New Year!!! Jason was not feeling well at all, lots of congestion AND he had to go back to work on the 2nd. :( While Jason was at work I played my Christmas gift, Age of the Empires III. It's awesome!!! and I just piddled around the apartment not really doing much of anything. I did finally take down all the Christmas stuff...the apartment looks bare now. OOOOhhhhhh!!! I got a really good handmixer for Christmas and I used it to make some terrible chocolate cake, but the process was fun. By the way, as much as I like to watch Iron Chef America....I am NO Iron Chef. Just don't have the knowledge... Oh well, I'll just watch it. It's the weekend now and I must get some lesson plans together for next week!!! and psyched up for the semester. I think it's going to go extremely fast and then extremely slow too. We'll see... The countdown continues to the big wedding day!!!! June 14th if you forgot already.

Hey, how did that get in there!
That is a mistletoe picture, so we just had to, ya know, kiss!!

Peace to you and hope you had a wonderful Christmas.

Irony, Wedding stuff and it's getting cold!!!!

2007-12-03T18:10:00.000-06:00

Well, let's see. I had a great time during Thanksgiving. Good food...yum yum. Got to talk with Pat!!! He seems to be doing ok. You know, it's not all that fun or even exciting, what he's doing. Maybe on occasion. He's looking forward to receiving some packages and coming home for R&R and see family AND Beowulf (his Siberian Husky). I don't think he's going to reenlist when his time is up ;)

What else...the irony? I don't know if you read my last blog but it had to do with death and how desensitized to or how we move on from it. I found out the Monday we got back to school that one of our senior students was killed that Sunday afternoon in a car crash. Talk about a wonderful way to start the week. Needless to say the week was not all that productive. I only had Justin in class for a couple of weeks before he requested 7th hour to work instead. But I have Justin's girlfriend in two classes and juniors who were majorly effected. I went to the funeral on Thursday. It wasn't pleasant. I really didn't know what to do when I heard the news. I felt like crying but I really didn't know him personally but I had a few interactions with him just because the school is so small. He told me one time he wished he could have stayed in my class (Ancient History) and whenever I saw him he was always bright and cheerful. There isn't really any profound thing to say after a kid/student/child dies like that, you just can't. Just cherish the time you have with your friends and loved ones. You never know when it will be your last or someone else you love. This isn't the thing you wish on students to learn how fragile life is, but I sure hope our students realize it.

The other bad thing that happened last week was that I got sick and I mean 100 degree fever sick. It started about noon on Monday with major headache, aches, hurting throat... Well the next morning I woke up and there was no way I was going to school, which stinks because then you have to take care of your lesson plans for that day and call the school for a substitute and then pray that your kids behave. Well of course some didn't...(another story). Anyway, I was fortunate to get into the doctor's office early and get a shot in the behind to help speed up the getting healthy process. Dang, it hurt. I'm still taking the huge pink pills. It really helped though. I was feeling much better that evening. Jason was so sweet and helpful. He even said he would stay home with me. Awwwww! He called and checked on me after work and asked if I needed anything. :D I'm so lucky!

That's about it except I ordered my wedding dress on Saturday!!! After I paid the bill, it hit me that it was done!!! I got so excited!!! Ruth, Jason's sister, went with me and that was fun...a lot better than going alone! We went down to Denton and had some lunch, Pei Wei, as a matter of fact and it was SOOOOO GOOOOOD!!!!! (We don't have wonderful Asian food here in Ardmore.) Anyway! It was a good day.

It's finally getting cold!!!!! No sweating but now Jason hears, "I'm freezing!" "I need my jacket!" "Where are my slippers?" etc... while he is just in heaven. He's a cold kinda guy. Weather that is. I like it too because I like to be wrapped up in blankets... Anyway, I'm looking forward to that first snowflake!!! Come on winter, bring it on!!!!

Peace to you and yours and be nice in the stores!!!

Love,
Kitty

Death....and being courageous!!!

2007-11-21T18:10:00.000-06:00

How's that for a title!!!

Well this is a blog sorta in response to a blog written by an excellent writer who should be doing it for a living....

In general, the blog was about hearing about death and then moving on from it. Especially when it personally does not effect us.

I think we are so flippant about death sometimes, is because it wasn't us. "Perpetual care and perpetual denial today." When Drew was in Iraq, and now Pat, I rarely watched the news but when it was unavoidable and I heard that some soldiers had been killed, I sorta stuck around to see where and who. I remember distinctly one time when I found out the latest batch who had been killed were British I was so relieved it wasn't Drew; then I went on. But a few hours later, I just broke down and weeped for those soldiers whom I flippantly passed over. Not because they had died exactly but about my attitude when I found out I didn't know who they were.

Yes, we are to move on and live life fully. I recently sent Patrick a package with a recorded message from me, and I read him two verses.

Deuteronomy 31:6 "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

and

Joshua 1:9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

The same should apply to us. Why not live courageously and boldly even, no matter where we are. Look who is on our side!! It seems to me a "duh" statement, but so hard to live by. We...or, I get so caught up in the "woe is me" attitude and that is just not pretty to be around, let me tell you. I usually get despondent and isolate myself, without turning to the one being who can actually do something about it. Or I forget what He has already done for us and is still doing for us. I get too comfortable in my own pain and wallow in it. It's hard to climb out of that sometimes. And even when I know the solution to the problem, I find it very difficult to just reach out for the very easy, ergonomic step ladder that is right there for me to grab. See, it's even easier for me to write about pain than write about Jesus, our Savior who is the ultimate healer and protector. That's why there are so many songs that are wonderful that deal with pain and not necessarily the solution, or the solution is not a wonderful one: drinking, drugs, sex, death, even. We can totally relate. Well I can't really relate to "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd, except that I have been comfortably numb but not because of drugs...but it sure is a cool song.

ANYWAY!!!

Enough! Let's talk about being couragous!!! Why not!!! Beautiful things happen when you are couragous. Like the first time someone says, "I love you," to another or giving a helping hand to someone you dislike. Those are personal, how about taking a personal couragous step with another and changing history. As a history teacher, I see many of America's leaders who were couragous to fight against tyranny, otherwise we may be talking with a different accent right now. Samuel Adams comes to mind and Thomas Paine (sounds intellectual, right? well we just studied it in US History...don't get me started). I am amazed at what it took for people to speak out for what they believed in, such as Thomas Paine who wrote Common Sense. In his own "blog," he wrote that is was "duh" not to break away from Britain and that historical document was the precursor to the Decleration of Independence.

This may sound corny but you should try "breaking away" from a life filled with such a careful life...if that makes sense.

Jesus said, "I have come so that you may have life, and live it to the full." (John 10:10)

Wonder what that means? Maybe it means we need to quit tip toeing around and actually live. Experience life...fall in love, go to school, have a career, travel, be with friends and family and don't get caught up in petty issues that we think are huge drama.

OK. Enough...go out there and live.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Satisfied

2007-11-09T14:03:00.001-06:00

Thought I would just write something. I'm deeply satisfied and I didn't realize it until just now. It's fall (and I LOVE fall). Thanksgiving is right around the corner and it is my favorite holiday. I am blessed with a wonderful family and brand new family through Jason. I like who I am...granted there are a few things I'd like to change about myself, who doesn't?

My life has been strange, interesting and so much fun. Sure, there has been some major drama in my life, who hasn't? I can't wait to see what is in store for me in the future. It's exciting.

Today I didn't have to go to work because we had parent teacher conferences until 9pm last night. They went really well!

I haven't done much today except play my Age of the Empires game on the computer. I did write some letters and make an eye doctor appointment. I'm about to actually clean up and go give blood too.

Just thought I would give a shout out that I am blessed. Take care!

Jessi

Random things....a lot has happened in a month!

2007-11-04T08:25:00.000-06:00

Well I was typing a blog yesterday and I accidentally closed it out and lost it all....ugh! I was almost done and had a LOT of stuff typed so I'm going to try again.

1) I felt terrible Friday. I ached all over and throat hurt and a headache and just was miserable. However! I had already taken the day off so I was at home and feeling terrible so that made me feel a little better. :)) Make sense? Well I did nothing that day except sleep, get a free flu shot (my first ever), watch a little TV, slept some more, played on the computer and cleaned the apartment. Jason's Mom came for a visit! The bad thing about sleeping all day is that you (or in this case I) wasn't able to go to sleep until around 1am, which sounds not all that early to some of you, but it's really late for me, OK!!! I don't know if I had a reaction to the flu shot or if this was left over from me feeling terrible Sunday through Tuesday earlier this week. ?

2) The previous day (November 1) was Jason's birthday! So we went to OKC and saw Jeff Dunham in concert. He's a comedian ventriloquist. If you know who Walter and Peanut are...they are my favorite characters! Jeff is really good too...it's like there are actually two different people standing up there. He's really great! Afterwards we went to one of Jason's favorite places to eat. Buffalo Wild Wings. Yummy! It was a great evening because Ruth and Cliff was able to come too.

3) Let's back up a little bit. School had a fall break. YAY!!! Started on a Wednesday and it was really needed. I went and got a haircut (desperately needed), my toes done (and I was in the chair for like and hour!!!) (so maybe my feet were in not so good shape), and I got my nails done too. This is one of the great things about living in a smaller town. It's a LOT cheaper to get these things done. :D Anyway Wednesday was wonderful. I got to rest and relax. Thursday Jason (who also had fall break) and I went to McAlester to pick up his parents so we could go to Fayetteville so the parents could meet! Aaaahhhh!!! Nah, it was awesome!!! They liked each other, we ate catfish, enjoyed the scenery, grilled and visited. What more could you want?

4) Ok, so now I'm down to 3 cheerleaders to sponsor at the high school level. Grades and infighting have narrowed the field so to speak. This is fine with me! It's ridiculous to see it happen. Obviously their priority (as they say) is not cheerleading. I tell them and my classes that whatever you do in life you are going to have to work with people you don't like and you are going to have to learn how to deal with it. Either you will do it badly and be miserable or find a way that will work without being mean or, hey, positive! They just don't get it....yet. They will find out the hard way, some of them. I was really disappointed on Thursday with one of my classes for ganging up on the bully during a review game. Which may or may not have been ok, but I didn't want them to. I told them their attitudes they form as a kid will not necessarily change when they become an adult. Their actions today will most probably be what they do as an adult. I don't know if that got through to them but they sure did quiet them down!

5) Halloween Carnival for the school. Because I am the sponsor of a club and co-sponsor of the junior class...I had to help manage three booths for the school carnival. The only good thing was that the junior class didn't have to think of a booth to do. The junior class always does the concession stand and bingo, which are probably the hardest things to manage. The cheerleaders decided to do a Goldfish ping pong game where you bounce the ping pong into a bowl to win a goldfish...well they didn't listen to me when I said they had put way to many goldfish out. All the goldfish were won half way through the carnival and so we made not even $100 dollars. (rolling of the eyes). However! I had fun because Jason came with me and helped out and it was nice to interact with the kids and see everyone dressed up. (kids that is) I dressed up on Halloween day as...you guessed it, a pirate....they've never seen me as a pirate and I had the costume...so what they hey!!

6) Want to ask for some prayer!! My Mom is not feeling all that well right now. She fell about a month ago at school and hurt her hip. She's been going to physical therapy and had an MRI last week to check it out because it really wasn't healing. She's having some other difficulties as well as missing Patrick. She's by herself and is pretty lonely, I think. She does have Beowulf, though! (Patrick's dog).

Also be praying for my nieces, Alex and Emma. They are having some balance issues and Drew and Mandy are taking them in for tests to see what the actual problem is. For Alex her feet were formed a little awkwardly and needs to have surgery...again...which wasn't a big surprise. Next week on the 14th is her surgery. This time it's going to be difficult because she's a big girl now and when she had her other surgeries she was a baby and really didn't remember it. This go around may be a little more difficult just because she's been able to walk for awhile. Pray for Drew and Mandy too as they are the ones taking care of those sweet girls!!! I just can't get enough of them!!

Pray for Pat as he is in Iraq. He has two jobs and one of them takes him away from the other. Apparently his "buddies" think he's shirking his duties and they are giving him a hard time. It seems, though, it's getting better. His specialty is Military Police, so you know that's going to be stressful!

7) What else? I really can't think of anything except that Jason and I are going to get our engagement pictures taken this Saturday! Yay!!!

Wow! Not writing for a month is not the way to go....I will try to write more often. See ya'll later....hopefully there will be some pictures to show off!!!!

Later taters,
Kitty

Some Highs, Some Lows

2007-10-07T15:43:00.001-05:00

First off....why do women shave their legs? Who came up with this idea? Yes, it feels nice after long hours in the shower, but it seems only for about an hour then you can feel some hairs saying "ha ha you missed me!!" and then the others are already growing back. Ugh! I do it anyway.

Last week was Jason's homecoming for high school. Monday was geek/nerd day and when I asked him why he wasn't dressing up, he replied, "because I'm a geek every day!" True...he is a math teacher... However, he did dress up Thursday for Rock Star Day and this is what he looked like:

My Rock Star (wannabe ;)

So that was the funny of the blog. Now on a more serious note...

Why do people live off of drama? What is it that makes us stop in our tracks and watch a car wreck or unrealistic soap operas? Sometimes I have to deal with a little drama that seems senseless to me. I am the cheerleading sponsor for Thackerville High School and on occasion the girls can't seem to focus because of the latest boyfriend break up or argument with each other. As my Mema used to say, "Why can't everybody just do what they're supposed to do?" However, even she wasn't immune. She loved watching the Muarry Povitch Show. But I do enjoy the cheerleaders, they sometimes make me feel old, but usually make me feel younger than I am...they make me laugh too!

The THS Cheerleaders!

I should mention that because I'm "in charge" of the cheerleaders, I'm also in charge of Homecoming. Yeah, that's right. Homecoming! We had the coronation and everything and I was the one who got to announce who the queen was. Way big deal! It was fun but highly stressful.

What else.

I got a call from my Mom last Thursday that my great uncle, Clyde Hogan, had passed away. He was my Mema's brother who lived in the same city as Mema and Papa. So we had a lot of interaction with him and Aunt Di. He lived to be 92 and was still very enthusiastic about life. Even after he had part of his leg amputated due to an infection. He was looking forward to getting his prosthesis. His attitude was what stands out to me. Always smiling and very very smart. He was funny too. Uncle Clyde told me a lot of stories about him growing up in Conway, AR and also OK during the depression with his other two brothers and my Mema. One in particular was when he was working out in a yard for someone and grew to be very tan. He got so dark that several people wouldn't have anything to do with him because they thought he was black. I'm not sure what his reaction was but I do know he believed in equality and fairness and was a humble person. He did a lot in his life and most of it was for other people. The funeral home did an awesome slide show of Uncle Clyde too.

Click here to read his obituary and watch his slide show. Even though you may not have met him, you can tell from his obit that he was an outstanding man!

I went to the graveside service in Conway yesterday. It was a long trip to and back again but worth it. It is good to see family even when it is for celebrating someone's passing. I suggest you read my sister-in-law's blog about Death and Dying and family. Very good insight. Check it out here.

The last thing I'll talk about is what I got when I got back home from the funeral. Jason's mom was in town and they both went shopping in OKC yesterday. When I got home Jason asked me to bring him what was under his hat in the kitchen. It was my wedding ring. Aaaaahhhhh!! and it wasn't the one that we looked at earlier! It was even better! It's white gold and a princess cut solitaire. He also bought an enhancer to go on the sides. *sigh* Here's a picture:

:)

In its box.

He did a good job, didn't he!!!

Last thing:

Please keep my Aunt Becky in your prayers. This is the daughter of Uncle Clyde. She lost her sister several years ago to a pretty terrible battle with cancer. And also their mother passed away several years ago too. Aunt Becky is the only one left of that part of the branch so she's feeling a little lonely. I would also have you pray for my mom who is still dealing with some health issues including a sore hip from a fall a couple of weeks ago. Keep Patrick in your prayers too while he is in Iraq!!!

Next blog will be about the meeting of Jason and my families in a couple of weeks. This should be a good time!!!

Later taters....gots to grade papers!!!
Kitty.

Post Script

2007-09-20T21:55:00.000-05:00

I totally forgot to mention that I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was awesome! I had to reread The Half-Blood Prince first so I could remember what was going on. I forgot a LOT of stuff. I read the last book sooo fast I couldn't take it all in. I almost cried too. Seriously! I think I drove Jason a little nuts a little earlier this week with my small obsession. I'll just have to reread it a little more slowly in a couple of months.

Just thought I'd share!!!

Wow, One Month!!!

2007-09-20T06:33:00.000-05:00

Hello, people!

I have come up and out of the gray to greet you (at 6:34am)!!! This is almost the only time I can do my blog!!! Yeah, I'm that busy (it seems, anyways). What's happened for a month?

Parent-teacher conferences. Interesting and for the most part enjoyable. I got to meet a lot of the parents. So, that was good. AND the next day, we didn't have school. Double YAY!!
Went to Lefores, TX for Labor Day weekend with Jason and met some more of his family. Uncle and cousins. Had a good time with their kids and jumping in the bouncy castle, ping pong tournaments and later playing poker with the adults! (There were a lot of kids there.)
Have gone to three football games with the cheerleaders. I have to say I like it. Except the bus rides for away games. Yikes!! It's jr. high and high school band trips all over again!!!
Goodness, what else? = School
I was invited to a PEO meeting!!! PEO is an international organization for women who help women in furthering their education. There are chapters everywhere and belonged to one in Waco and now have met more sisters! So fun!!! It's a fun deal.

Slowly but surely we are meeting new people in Ardmore. Most of our time is spent either in Thackerville or Sulphur (where Jason teaches). I've been to one church here in Ardmore and am planning to visit others but if I could just get in a free Sunday....

I've been in contact with my brother, Patrick who is in Iraq since the beginning of September. He is doing well and seems to be the responsible one in his unit (go figure). His true colors shine now! His unit is a military police unit doing police like things and helping out the Iraqi police. However, his punctuation and spelling in his email has not improved. :D

I'm really looking forward to our fall break in October. It looks like I'll be sleeping in and watching a little TV. It's also the weekend where my parents and Jason's parents are going to meet for the first time!!! This will be fun!!!

Oh by the way, I watched the premier of Kid Nation last night and it is now my favorite TV show before The Office comes on NEXT week!!! :D The kids are running their own pioneer town and have to figure out how to organize themselves and survive. It is soooo cute and I was rooting for them the whole hour. They were very good to encourage each other!

Well I really got to run and dry my hair and then go to school. I will write a little more when I get the chance!!! Hopefully sooner than later!!!

Love,
Kitty

PS: GO HOGS GO!!!!! Beat Kentucky!!!

Sleepy Time!!

2007-08-18T14:23:00.000-05:00

Ok, So this is the first weekend where I've been able to sleep in, and boy, did I sleep in. A lot has been going on to make me so tired!!!

Started school last Thursday, August 9th. First day was good and so was Friday and now I'm through the first full week of school. I'm having a blast and I love the kids. However, there will always be one or two or three kids that is going to test me and they already have!!! But so far so good. I think I've handled it in an appropriate manner. I'm sure if I haven't, someone will let me know.

I gave an open book/note test yesterday on Ancient World History. Fun!! All my other classes have tests on Monday. I'm still in the organizing phase. It's going to be tough for awhile getting together all my resources and thinking of ways to teach that are not just worksheets. But I do have a projector that hooks to my computer so I can do some internet stuff and powerpoint presentations too!

So let me back up a little. Last weekend Jason and I went home to Arkansas to visit family, in particular, Patrick. It was his last farewell before being shipped off to Iraq. He actually left on Wednesday and arrived in Kuwait yesterday? Pray for him and his unit's safety and courage. So Saturday we had a little party and it was great. I got to play with my two nieces while the guys took naps :D Actually earlier that morning we all went over to Grandma's house. Dad is going to try and sell it. Grandma is now in the nursing home and needs 24/7 care. We went over to her house to "divvy up" everything. Which was hard, because Grandma wasn't there, yet she hasn't passed away either. It was weird and sad but good at the same time. Does that make sense?

Sunday, Jason and I left for Ardmore, OK, but not before going to see Grandma. It was the first time I had seen her in the nursing home. It was tough, but she knew who I was!

So, here are some pictures from several things:

Farewell dinner with my gals
Me holding Ben (Jennie's baby) for the first time
Moving pictures
Lewis and Heather's wedding
Pat's Party

The Gals

Me and Ben

Lewis and Heather

Me and the moving truck all loaded up!

Play time with Emma

Call those Hogs, Alex!!

Drew looks good in pink!

Me and my sweetie!

Me and my bros!

Yes, that is a squirrel on the cake with a MP baret on it's head!

Great pic of Mom and Pat

The Big Move and The Job!!!!

2007-08-06T17:01:00.000-05:00

Holy Molyrama!!! There has been so much going on and I stubbed my toes today!! Where to start... well first of all check out this video blog...my last with Mary Beth :(

and then this one:

Ok, sooo now that was really a recap of what has gone on previously but I just wanted to make sure you knew what was going on!!!!

OK!!! The Big Move!!! Thursday 26 July was my last day at Dr Pepper Museum. It was extremely sad and that's all I have to say about that.

Friday, went swimming one last time with Anita and then packed packed packed and then Sammy and I went to get the Budget truck for all my crap (and I had a lot of it too!!!). I took Sammy to lunch at Bush's Chicken and it was extremely good.

I don't remember actually what I did after that except pack pack pack and for a break I watched Pride and Prejudice. It was great. Ok, the next day I packed some more and waited for the guys to arrive which they did and started moving my junk. They were awesome. Got it done in about 1.5 hours with a lot of sweat! Thanks Mark, Lewis, Chris and Mr. Havens!!! Ya'll rock! Anita and Joy came after them and cleaned my apartment. It was amazing. I have such great friends. Thank you so much!!! THEN Ruth, Cliff and all their boys came to actually drive the truck and help me move into the apartment at Ardmore. Cliff actually got there before Ruth and I did and that's ok with me. I had a good time taking turns driving with the boys. :D

Well, I'll tell ya, I took two showers that day, one with my own sweat (that was involuntary) and the other right before I went to bed. Whew! What a day! Jason's mom was at the apartment too and that was great. We all cooled down for a bit in the pool with Cliff's sister and her husband and kids who live in Ardmore.

So the rest of the week was basically spent unpacking and organizing all while my Mom came for a visit to help unpack and set up my school room and reserve the wedding chapel!!!! JUNE 14th at 1pm. WRITE IT DOWN!!!

Saturday I went back to Waco (which was weird, by the way) for Lewis' and Heather's wedding. It was nice and I got to see some friends.

It was nice to sleep in a little on Sunday before starting the work week!!! Dad was in Dallas helping Alison's son move so he came up on Sunday and checked out the apartment and took Jason and I out to lunch. Thanks, Dad!!

TODAY was my first day of work and it was pretty good. One hour with all the administration and then time in my room getting all my resources together and then an In-Service about Special Education then more time in my room and asking the principal some questions. Hey!! We get our own laptops!!! Cool!!! I also met some of my students who are also cheerleaders, which I am sponsoring this year!!! Oh my goodness what have I gotten myself into!!! I don't know but I'm sure I will blog about it not this weekend but the next when I get a break! Pat will be in Fayetteville before he leaves for Iraq and Jason and I are going up to see him. :|

All right people, peace out and keep cool!!! Whew! It's hot!!! But, it could be worse!

Claudio & Star Wars!!!

2007-07-16T13:12:00.002-05:00

O-M-Goodness!!! Saturday was just pretty darn awesome, I must say. Mary Beth and I went up to Dallas to the Vans Warped Tour just to see Coheed & Cambria. This is a band that MB introduced me to and it turns out I really love them. They are pretty unique, that's why MB and I like them so much. The lead singer/guitarist is Claudio Sanchez who writes all the songs based on a science fiction storyline which he also writes. There are comic books that go with the story. It's really complicated to understand. Sometimes I don't even understand it! So I drove us up to the Smirnoff Music Centre and we parked and went in. Now you have to understand, MB and I were in the minority of the population who went to this type of venue. A lot of emo/goth kids, weird looking clothes and tattoos and perhaps some maryjane was present and definitely alcohol. No, I didn't inhale. It was an interesting experience and it was cool to see a group of people be able to express themselves without other people thinking them weird. Do you know what I mean?

Vans Warped Tour has like 30 bands that play short concerts. We wandered around the main area and couldn't find any information about C&C. What we didn't realize was that around the corner and in the back of the main venue were more stages and all the merch tents. Duh!!! Glad we asked somebody. It was a good thing C&C started at 2pm instead of the 1pm we thought. In the meantime we bought some merch, namely a T-Shirt. I wore it yesterday and already got a comment on it. Sweet.

It was really hot on Saturday and the area around the stage was level so, myself being shorter than the people there had a difficult time seeing Claudio unless I jumped up and down. I did get several good pictures by holding up my camera. Check it out!!!

Merch tent

Before the concert and before the sweat

Concert just beginning!

Travis on the left, Claudio with the hair

Ok. The concert was over about 2:30 and we left high on adrenaline and were walking to the car. I said, "Wouldn't it be cool if they were walking in the parking lot too?" Not 5 seconds went by and MB said, "There's Claudio!!!" We may have chased after them a little bit. I was too in shock to say anything except motion with my hand that we wanted a picture. I thought MB was going to have a heart attack. Alas, we were not able to get a picture with them, but MB got a picture of them walking away from us. :D

So close, yet so far away!!!

*************************************************************************************

STAR WARS

After sitting in the car calming down and cooling down, we drove over to Ft. Worth to the Science and History museum to see the Star Wars exhibit. It was awesome...

It had the costumes and models used in all six of the films...let's just say, I was in heaven. We were soooooo tired though. You'll just have to look at the photos:

Landspeeder

Sandpeople

Bantha and Luke Skywalker model

Me and Yoda hangin'

Cool lightsabers

After the exhibit we went and ate at Lucile's on Camp Bowie Blvd. Good stuff.

Tired!!! Good Day!

ENGAGED!!!!!!

2007-07-06T12:52:00.001-05:00

OMG!!!! I'm ENGAGED!!!! Yes, folks, you heard it right. Jason asked me to marry him yesterday! What a wonderful proposal he made!

Utterly speechless are the words that came out of my mouth when Jason drove down through the rain from Oklahoma to the museum to propose to me. I, of course, said yes and we will live happily ever after!

Here's how it went down:

Jason got to the museum and called for Mary Beth and she came down stairs (I was in another building). She saw he had flowers and asked him if he was there for the reason she thought and he said yup. Mary Beth ran upstairs and got the camera and ran into Joy and told her what was happening. So Mary Beth led Jason over to the other building where I was. She opened the door and I thought to myself, were we supposed to take pictures of something? MB had the camera around her neck. Then Jason came in behind her with this beautiful bouquet of flowers and according to some my eyes got as big as saucers. I kept on saying what are you doing here (clueless at this point). He said Happy Birthday! and gave me my flowers and I'm ogling them. They are beautiful. But I told him it wasn't my birthday and he got all upset because he drove all the way down to Waco on the wrong day!! I kept on telling him it was ok but he wouldn't hear of it. What he said was: "The only way I can say I'm sorry and mean it is on one knee." When he did that the light bulb came on and I realized what he was really going to do. Of course I turned red and started tearing up. He said: "You've depended on me and I've depended on you and I want us to depend on each other for the rest of our lives so that when we are old we can change each other's depends! Jessica Harris I love you and will you marry me?" This speech is very classic Jason. I said yes and we hugged and hugged and kissed and it was awesome! I did get a ring! Jason's class ring from high school, so I guess this means we're going steady for reals! He's working on getting the perfect ring. It was about 3:00 so I said I was going home and call everybody. We did and then went to dinner with Angie and Chris at the Olive Garden. It was great. Perfect ending to a day that actually started out pretty yucky. It's been raining pretty much off and on for about a month and impeding our work. But who cares now right?

We are looking at either December 2007 or June 2008 to get married but nothing is in stone. We will let you know as soon as we know!

The proposal

The answer

More hugs

The flowers

Remember Your Freedom!!!

2007-07-03T15:29:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to send out a reminder to remember your freedom and how you got it! We are free because of the men and women who stood up for the rights we deem necessary as human beings.

Since I am a movie buff, I thought I would recommend some movies to watch that are inspirational (to me anyways).

1776 (a musical but very very good)
Glory
We Were Soldiers
The Patriot
Saving Private Ryan
Patton (One of my Dad's favorites)
A Few Good Men
The American President
Black Hawk Down
Hotel Rwanda (heavy heavy movie but all need to watch)
Sands of Iwa Jima
Tora Tora Tora
Memphis Belle

There are others out there but I haven't seen them all!!

Thanks to all those who have served and are serving your country, no matter where you are!

Times, They are a Changin'...

2007-06-25T11:53:00.000-05:00

Howdy ya'll. Long time, no write!!! It has been absolutely crazy in my life! So much has happened I don't even know where to start. Well let me start with the end of May:

Memorial Day weekend:
I had a WONDERFUL weekend in McAlester, OK at Jason's parents and Jason, of course! It was very relaxing and I DID NOT want to leave. It's nice to have someone take care of you and grill for you everyday! I TRIED to help, but they are the kind of people that won't let you do that.

Then, honestly I don't remember even when I got the call but, Thackerville School District called me in for an interview for their social studies position at the High School. Awesome! I was very nervous but, once again Jason's family did an awesome thing for me. Ruth, Jason's sister, spent the night with me in Gainesville the day before the interview and just gave me some moral support while I was at the interview. It was very much needed AND I got to see TC for the first time (Jason's nephew)!

After feeling like I was going to throw up at the interview, I settled down and actually had a good time, especially after I saw the superintendent and principal in shorts and Hawaiian shirts!!! LOL! The interview lasted about two hours and I got a tour of the school and "my room." I also helped a couple of people with computer problems. Kudos to me.

The principal said I would hear from them at the beginning of the next week. Well I hadn't heard from him and hadn't heard from him until that Friday I believe. The superintendent called and asked me to interview with the school board. I said of course.

The second interview was not as scary as the first and we had homemade butter pecan ice cream. Not bad!

SO I have a job in OKLAHOMA!!! WHERE MY BOYFRIEND LIVES!!!! But it gets better. While my stomach was churning over and over about taking the Thackerville job, Jason and I were trying to get jobs in the same area. Jason interviewed at Sulphur, OK about 30 miles of Ardmore which is 30 miles north of Thackerville. Well, Jason got the job in Sulphur and I got the job in Thackerville and now we can live in the SAME city. Yippeee!!! Ardmore will be the location and we have found a very very nice apartment complex. Really nice. I'm looking forward to living there.

SO that means I will be leaving for OK on the 28th of July.

Then I freaked out a little when I found out that school starts on August 9th. AUGUST 9th PEOPLE!!!! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! So I immediately went to to the education supply store and refrained from buying anything but looked intently at it all. I love supplies.

This past weekend:

Friday I went to Thackerville to pick up some paperwork, insurance, school calendar, employee handbook, and old school books, just to get an idea of what I would work with. Cool. Then I met Jason in Ardmore and looked at the apartments. Nice. Then went up to OKC to take my last OSAT test for certification (cross your fingers). Overall the test went well. I was relaxed and rested. As always, though, the essay sucked. I hate essays.

Well now that changes are coming my way, I will point out that they are exciting and scary at the same time. Exciting because it will be different and I will get to see my sweetie everyday, but scary because it will be different and something I've never done before. I've never been in such a serious relationship before. I have learned a lot about myself. Some good and some bad. But I have learned that having someone you can talk about anything to without the fear of rejection and feel safe doing it is a wonderful feeling. Dealing with conflict is very hard for me. I let it build up and when I release it, it can hurt people. I do not like to hurt people. I want everyone to be happy. In no way am I an expert in managing conflict, as some of you may know, but I'm trying and like I've said before, it's a life long process.

Some people forget that and want life to be easy. We all do, but we forget that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness takes work.

Happiness

Let's work at it people....don't give up! I'm not!!!

PS: Mary Beth and I got tickets to the VansWarped tour in Dallas! Coheed & Cambria will be there!!! AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!

The Keywork by Coheed & Cambria

PPS: I HAVE TO START PACKING!!!!!!

Rood dood dood dood doooo, Big Tuna!

2007-05-22T17:31:00.000-05:00

If any one get's the quote above, you ROCK!!!

Well I haven't written in a very long time. I've been very very busy. Wow, May 8th was the last time I wrote! Well let's see, the major thing is that I was in a wedding last Saturday. For anybody who has been in a wedding who is a girl, you know that it can be stressful and a lot of work. I think I'm still recovering! However, the whole experience has taught me what to do and what not to do when I get married. Anybody who knows me will know that I will have a list for everyone involved and the list might be laminated. I'm just saying... :D The one thing I wanted to comment on specifically was about women in general. There were two occasions where I received a manicure and pedicure for the big event. I love getting pampered just because I rarely do it. I'm not a huge talker but I can carry on a conversation, but what I really love to do is listen. I loved listening to the women around me talking and gossiping together. Yes, gossiping... We all do it (yes guys do it too, you can't deny it!!!) but girls are professionals at it. However, when I was listening to the women around me I felt a sense of comraderee even though I didn't know them. It was nice, I felt a part of something and I felt like this was part of what being a girl was all about. Not gossiping, mind you, but talking and sharing experiences. The way men and women communicate with each other is totally different and it's hard to learn sometimes. I will admit that I don't understand sometimes why girls are the way we are and why guys are the way they are. God had something in mind, I'm sure. I guess, if I think about it, so we can say... "what are they thinking?" ...and for the guys... "I will never understand women!!" Maybe we aren't meant to!!???!!!

On being maid of honor for your friend...OMG! It's a lot of work! I was totally drained Saturday evening!!! and took a very long nap on Sunday. I have never run around so much BUT I must say I was glad to do it because it was beautiful and wonderful and exciting to see two people in love commit their lives to one another for the rest of their lives.

Chris & Angie...aawwww!

Also, I loved getting my hair done. That was really nice and actually very relaxing. HOWEVER!!! I had someone do my makeup and that was fine and I think I looked ok, but I usually don't wear a lot of makeup. Mascara and lipstick. Well it was the whole works on this gal and I literally didn't recognize myself. I will say this. I had a lot of compliments on my appearance and I felt beautiful because of it.

Jess & Angie

Random thought: Guys with rings on their fingers are sexy... I don't what it is but there ya go... A young Jerry Lewis with that ring on his finger....yummy!

Also, just because I've been surrounded by people getting married, an observation is that guys don't seem to participate in the wedding planning (but I know one who is very much a part of it) and that's fine but remember guys, it's your day too, but you can't complain about it if you don't get involved!! Anyway, Lewis asked me why the wedding is such a big deal to us (girls) so I thought about it.

We get to be a princess for a day
We get to declare our love for our prince publically
We like dressing up
We like to party
We love details
We get presents
From an unconscious and sociological standpoint, we can prove (or disprove) how, we as future wives, are organized and detailed and how we can pull off something as important as a wedding.
Yeah, we know the ceremony lasts 20-30 minutes...who cares?
I'm sure there are other unconscious reasons we like it but because they are unconscious, I can't think of them right now.

So that's the wedding week/end.

Work related. WE ARE FINALLY MOVING STUFF!!! We have been waiting patiently and yesterday was the first day we got actually move collection items from one building to the other. It was emotionally magnificent. We've got a lot more to do but we are excited about it because, as collections people, we get to organize stuff. We are professionals at it and we love to organize!
I'm tired and my feet hurt but it feels good. I've been productive!!!

On another note...I also pulled a klutz moment this morning. It rained last night and this morning I slipped and fell straight down on my knees. Wow, that really smarted!!! In return I received a very nice knot on my right knew, which looked like a very large abnormal grape. It's better and the swelling has gone down a bit.

OH!!!! I can't believe I forgot to tell you this!!! I received my test scores from the last two OSAT tests I took in April. I PASSED!!!! I found out Friday and was soooooo happy. I can't tell you how happy I was. I seriously thought I was going to fail the US History/OK History/Government/Economics test. It turned out that I scored highest on the government part...ugh! Not my favorite subject, however, while I was studying everything, it was like studying something new and really really interesting. I've always have had a passion for history but you know, when you are a kid, who cares!!! Now that I've "lived" a little, history is much more interesting... ANYWAY!! I just have one more test and I can get my teaching license in OK. I've applied for several positions...and will be applying for several more. Pray that I will get the right one!!!

Ok that's it for now...my fingers are tired!! One more picture of Angie & Chris at the reception!

Hiiiiii YAH!!!

War

2007-05-08T08:40:00.000-05:00

Preface: My writing may be random...just my thoughts as the come to me.

"War. What is it good for, absolutely nothing...good god ya'll."

Well, anyone who knows history should know that war is inevitable. War is bad and war is good. Your life would be different if there was no war. Think about it. A lot of our technology has been derived from war because someone is thinking of new ways to kill people. I'm serious!

My brothers are in the Army Reserves. Drew has been to Iraq and back. Patrick was called up to go last Wednesday and he leaves for training this Thursday. I went home this past weekend for a visit because we don't know if we will get to see him before he actually goes over. It was a good visit. We did normal brother/sister stuff that Pat and Jessica do. Bond over movies and books and music. Goofy pictures are on the way.

When Drew left for Iraq I was depressed and had nightmares. I got to go to his farewell ceremony and that was pretty awful but I was very proud too. I'm very proud of Patrick too. They both signed up for the army, and even though it's been a hugely crappy deal, they are doing their jobs.

I respect anyone who has gone to war or has served in the military. Men have a mental capacity that I can't comprehend. I can't really speak for all women and their mental capacity but I can speak for myself in this respect. I don't know that I would be able to be in the military and fight for my life or for another's. My hope would be yes, I would do this for another. My mental capacity includes a lot of emotional drama with some logic and reason in there somewhere like salt and pepper...just for flavor.

What it boils down to is this. My concern is above all else my brother's safety. But I am concerned for his mental/emotional health. I will never know what all Drew has gone through but I know some of it and it is hard. I think he has become a better man because of it. At first I didn't want Pat to have to suffer what Drew has suffered but then I realized that everyone must go through some type of pain and suffering; some just go through more than others. This is what shapes us. If we never suffered, think of what life would be like. Purposeless, shallow and boring. We would never know what joy is. When it comes to suffering there are two options: give up or work through it. My prayer is that John Patrick Harris will work through whatever he faces in the year to come, learn from it and become a better man (or little brother, whichever the case may be).

Didn't say it would be easy...it never will be.

Pat is in the 603rd Military Police Unit.

That's all the time I have for now.

John Pat and Drew

Danger - if you meet it promptly and without flinching - you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
Winston Churchill

Holy Moly....it's been awhile...

2007-04-30T09:49:00.000-05:00

Ok, even though I video blogged last Thursday, I still haven't written anything for a couple of weeks. People, I've been busy and just as a reminder...I don't have access to the internet at home, otherwise, I'd be on it a whole lot.

So where should I start:

TAM = Texas Association of Museums was Tuesday, April 17th - 20th. This is an association of museums, obviously, in Texas that meet every year. We go to seminars specifically for our department. I went to collections and exhibitions seminars. It was a pretty good TAM. It's almost like going on vacation (this year it was in Austin). The beds were comfy and I got to actually sleep and eat some good food (not in bed, though). Straight from Austin I dropped off Brian at the DP Museum on Friday and headed up to Oklahoma City. That weekend was the weekend of test 3 and 4 for teaching certification. We'll see how I did on May 18th. Cross your fingers!!!

I did in fact have a really good time in OKC despite the tests that wipe me out mentally. Jeff Gordon won his race, so that was fun. And, let me just say, that I will be doing a little jig and singing the Hallelujah chorus when I don't have to drive all over the place. I'm looking forward to stickin' in one spot and give my lil car a rest!!!

The next week is sorta blurry. We are chomping at the bit to start moving stuff to the new building but delays have hung us up so we are sorta just twiddling our thumbs. I'm really anxious to drive the forklift. (mwwwhhhhaaa haaa haaa HA!) We have actually been doing stuff like putting together our new desks (physical labor!!) Mary Beth and I rock at putting together stuff. We also did a video blog for the museum, our own personal blog and a podcast for the museum. We have been busy doing techie stuff. We love it.

This past weekend was awesome. I've been looking forward to it for a LONG time. Angie and I scheduled a little relaxation time at the spa and had our feet done and nails done and then a lovely massage. We should have done the hour though. 30 minutes is too short! This was sort of a pre stress reliever for her before the wedding (3 weeks to go!!) and this was a stress reliever for me. We had a nice lunch and then went to Hobby Lobby to make her bouquet for her bridal portraits which are this weekend. I also went for a walk because it was a beautiful if not hot day. 50 minutes outside around a track with my tunes. It was a good walk. Later that evening the girls from work met at the Rib Crib for a semi-formal farewell to co-worker Carrie who is graduating from Baylor and then moving to Florida for this awesome job. :(

I went to pick up some movies at Hastings which I haven't done in several months. This is what I got:

Blood Diamond - VERY GOOD!!! Recommend it to everyone.
For Your Consideration - It was ok. Another mockumentary by Christopher Guest and company. It was late when I watched it. It may be better than I think.
The Good Shepard - interesting, a little confusing and very depressing. I don't know if I would recommend it or not.

Sunday I went to church and then watched The Good Shepard and then watched the end of the NASCAR race. Very intense!!! But Jeff Gordon won again!!!! Woot Woot!!

BTW, he's pretty cute!

Ok, here's one of his car.

There ya go!! So now you're caught up. Keep your eye out for new video blogs!!!

2nd Video Blog

2007-04-27T10:41:00.000-05:00

Hey ya'll! Mary Beth and I made a video blog last night right before The Office. We expound on Travis Stevers of Coheed & Cambria, shoes on Zappos, Ronald Jenkees and, of course, The Office. For more info on Ronald Jenkees, click here.

CHECK OUT OUR BLOG!!!!

Dwight's Speech

2007-04-17T13:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday and today has been fairly crappy. So I needed to watch something funny at lunch today. Something that makes me laugh and therefore makes me feel better is the epsiode of The Office called Dwight's Speech. Dwight is awarded Dunder-Mifflin Salesman of the Year and must make a speech at a big convention. This is his speech. (Must be read in an angry voice and look insane).

(Slam, slam, slam!) "Blood alone moves the wheels of history! Have you ever asked yourselves in an hour of meditation which everyone finds during the day, how long we've been striving for greatness? (Slam!) Not only the years we've been at war, the war of work. But from the moment as a child when we realize that the world can be conquered. It has been a life time struggle (Slam!), a never ending fight, I say to you (Slam!), and you will understand that it is a privilege to fight (light applause)! We are warriors (moderate applause)!! Salesmen of north-eastern Pennsylvania I ask you, once more rise and be worthy of this historical hour!"

Dwight laughs maniacally with the now roaring applause from the audience as Michael gets up from his seat in the audience and begins to walk out of the auditorium. It is not clear if Dwight is laughing at Michael or if he is just caught in the moment.

"No revolution is worth anything unless it can defend (Slam!) itself (applause)!"

The following scenes show Michael walking through the hallways of the hotel, Creed changing the office thermostat (which Oscar notices), Dwight speaking with dictator-like hand and arm movements emphasizing his words, and Michael having a second drink at the hotel bar, all while we hear Dwight's speech.

"Some people will tell you "salesman" is a bad word, they'll conjure up images of used car dealers and door-to-door charlatans. This is our duty to change their perception. I say, salesmen, and women, of the world, unite. (random, misplaced applause)! We must never acquiesce, for it is together, together (with the audience) that we prevail! We must never cede control of the motherland for it is (with the audience again) together that we prevail!!"

Dwight holds his award up to the roaring applause from the audience and slams his fist on the podium six times.

Is there a Swarles Barkley here?

2007-04-17T13:31:00.000-05:00

SWARLEY!

ps: if anybody gets this, you ROCK!!

Ode to Coheed & Cambria

2007-04-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

Ok, folks...the highly anticipated...well, not really but first video blog done by yours truly and Mary Beth. It's pretty exciting...There's a part one and two. Highly suspenseful, I might add. Especially the tornado part...

CHECK IT OUT!!!!

PART I

PART II

Whirlwind of a week/end

2007-04-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I'm blogging during work. Whatcha gonna do!

Ok so last time I blogged it was serious. It won't be so serious today. I'll sorta recap the weekend with my Mom, which was last weekend (not this past weekend). We had an excellent time and relaxed and partied (as much as you can party with your mom). Basically I picked her up from the DFW airport and spent the night at a nice hotel and had some good food at the Melting Pot and the next day went to the Dallas Arboretum. Beautiful flowers!!! Stopped off at Hillsboro outlet stores and Mom picked up a few things and I picked up a few things. We sorta just vegged and watched movies and exercised and had a wonderful time until it was time for her to go. My Mom picked an 8:30am departure from DFW on a Tuesday so I said we were going to have to leave around 5am to make it. She said are you sure? I said, well maybe 5:30am WRONG!!! Due to a wreck and morning traffic she missed her flight. I got her there around 8am but apparently wasn't there early enough to check her in with luggage and board the plane. She did get the next flight out at noon. She said next time she'll fly into Waco. I concur.

The week went by slowly BUT I got a new phone and new carrier. Motorola RAZR V3xx and on Cingular. All my family is on Cingular and it just made sense. (Mom upgraded her phone too while we were there, so for about three hours on the couch, we were playing with our phones).

I was instructed not to call my sweetie that whole week because he was working round the clock on finishing his National Board Certification for Teachers. It drove me a little crazy but a few txt messages and emails were exchanged. So now the really exciting part of this past weekend:

I was going to drive up to OKC Friday after work and just hang out with Jason but that didn't happen due to the HUGE storm that came up. Mary Beth and I were creating our first ever personal video blog about Coheed & Cambria when we heard the tornado sirens go off. We checked the weather and decided to head down to the basement. All the visitors were gone by then. We all kept listening to the weather and by the time the tornado was supposed to reach us, it decided to head due east. That didn't prevent the flooding from occuring, however.

Flooding at 20th & Homan in Waco (Photo by Abigail Feltenberger)

Everyone stayed at the museum until about 6pm and needless to say I did NOT travel that night. Instead, I stayed home and went to see Blades of Glory with MB and David. It was just what I needed = laughing very hard.

The next morning around 7:15 I headed to OKC. I was about 10-15 miles south of the Oklahoma/Texas border when I saw two cars in front of me try to avoid a 4x4 in the middle of the interstate. I tried to avoid it too, but managed to run over it. I was a little pumped due to the adreneline but I managed to keep a straight head on and exited the next exit to check the damage. As I opened the door I heard the hissing of a leaking tire. Yup, the tire was completely flat and the rim was bent. Gulp! Almost on the verge of tears I drove/hobbled over to the Shell station and parked in back. Lo and behold I spied across the street a tire shop! Saved!! When I got over there I found that it was closed due to a death in the family. Open on Monday. Great. I walk into the gas station and ask if there is a tire shop near by and she said there was one just up the street. McRenoylds Tire Shop. Good! But I couldn't drive up there with a flat tire so I asked a construction worker to help me change the tire who was working conveniently at the Shell gas station where I parked. He changed it and I was on my way! Thank you!!! I drove up to the tire shop not 150 yards to where I had exited. It was a little scary though. Sorta like Deliverance. Mr. McRenoylds had on overalls and a scruffy long beard and red cap. However, he was a peach and fixed my rim in no time and there was actually nothing wrong with the tire. He charged me $10 and I almost hugged him. I'm very fortunate...all this could have turned out much worse. Thank you, Lord for taking care of me!!

I finally got to Jason's and the order of the day was sleep so that's basically what we did. Slept, ate and slept again for a very long time. He needed it and so did I.

So that was my whirlwind weekend. How was yours?

Who am I? Who are you?

2007-03-26T10:39:00.000-05:00

What is in a man that convicts him to try and change the world? Perhaps someone rooted in his faith. A faith that teaches humanity; the morals and ethics that rightly defines good and evil. And then gives him the courage to act on his faith. Oh, that I had the courage to step forward and say something let alone do something.

I think God gives us what He knows we can handle, but the confidence in ourselves is so lacking we do nothing.

Mom and I went to see the movie Amazing Grace. It was wonderful. I thought it was about the guy who wrote the song but it was actually about William Wilberforce of Britain who fought to pass a bill to abolish the slave trade. He struggled through many years of defeat, a war and sickness but finally it happened. How did he keep on going? I don't know. Through the grace of God, no doubt. I recommend the movie to everyone. It was really inspiring.

Another awesome thing yesterday. I heard something at church yesterday that really opened my eyes. We sometimes feel we need to prove ourselves to others. This is an indication that we lack an identity or confidence in who we are/who I am. I can think of numerous times when I go out of my way to "prove" to someone what I am capable of either physically or mentally. I don't do it overtly but subtly, when I think they may be watching. Wow, what a way to live. It can be pretty tiresome.

What do I need to prove? I'm not sure. Nothing! I should know who I am! I DO know who I am! I really do know who I am but sometimes I forget and get insecure... It happens. I think it happens to all of us at one time or another.

You may laugh but write out your mission statement! It describes who you are and your purpose in life. Only a couple of sentences so you can remember it. Museums are very good at this. At least some anyways. Mission statements help you focus.

Random life quote from my director at the museum:
"Don't sweat the petty stuff, and don't pet the sweaty stuff."

Don't forget to smile today. :D

Tulips at the Dallas Arboretum
3/24/07

SPRING BREAK IS CRAZY and Prayer Request!!!!

2007-03-16T17:08:00.000-05:00

Oh my sweet goodness...is March over yet? It has been crazy and it's not really half way over. Yikes! I'm gonna need a vacation and soon. Last week starting on Thursday the 10-2-4 Convention began with a bang with a reception at the museum. That was fine and everything went well. The T-Shirts that Mary Beth and I designed were received extremely well. (Every person who comes to the convention gets a T-Shirt). Friday was the big show where the Collections Department gave a seminar on preventive conservation for objects. Keeping with the theme of the convention, "Dr Pepper at the Movies," Mary Beth and I made a movie as an introduction to the presentation but of course we technical difficulties so we couldn't show our Powerpoint Presentation but went through it anyway while Jack, our director, ran back to the museum to pick up MB's flash drive which had the movie on it. We played it on someone else's laptop. You should check out our movie:

Pretty cool huh! Oh yeah and we made a Blooper Reel too!

We think it's funny...

ANYWAY!!!

We did that and then got ready for that Saturday which was the SWAP meet. People buying and trading and selling DP memorabilia. The Collections Department sold stuff too out of consignment. The money goes back to the department for conservation and preservation of the artifacts. BUT before Saturday rolled around a bunch of us went to see the movie 300, which was AWESOME!!!! I really want to see it again, too. Oh and by the way, did I mention I passed my first two tests to get my teacher certification? Yeah, I did and now I'm studying for the next two tests.

So Saturday in the midst of the SWAP meet I did a huge amount of errands including getting an oil change after I was SUPPOSED to get one in January. Whoops!!! Mary Beth and I met for dinner Sat. evening and then went and saw Happy Feet at the dollar theater. It was cute but not really for kids! LOL!

Sunday I basically went to church, slept, watched a little bit of NASCAR, went to Lewis' for Home Group and then went home and slept. I was soooo tired.

THIS WEEK:

OMGoodness!!!! March brings Spring Breakers. This means the museum is crazy. You know, like a trillion people in the museum and people throwing up and stuff like that. We like it when we have visitors but GOODNESS they are loud! I shouldn't complain too much. We are having the best days we have ever had at the museum. It's incredible! Today was probably the craziest day since MB and I were picking up 20 pallets for our move which had to be done in two trips which took up most of the morning (and I got an owie on my knuckle. OUCH!) We ran to eat lunch before the taste testing and then did the taste test. We tested 80 people in one hour. Wow! THEN we went to Office Max to pick up our desks for the new offices. They weighed a ton. By this time it's almost 4pm and Jennie tells me that my Southernliving at Home stuff is here in five HUMONGOUS boxes. I'm so excited 1.5 of those boxes is mine. ALL MINE!! It's exciting. I don't normally get a lot of stuff from these kind of deals. So now I'm about to go home and decorate my apartment with all my cool stuff and maybe soak in the tub and watch Season 7 of Buffy. Yay for the weekend!

PRAYER REQUEST!!!!

Mandy emailed me about Alex and Emma (my nieces). They both have some developmental issues both physically and mentally. Alex has been diagnosed with Larson's Syndrome but recent tests have suggested it could actually be a metabolic disorder. Please pray for them as they decide what to do. They've been dealing with this for over four years and I would like to see a true diagnosis so they can deal with everything properly. Here's Mandy's email. It gives some more details:

Just an update on the girls and all that is going on health wise...

I spoke with Alex's neurologist today after a confusing and vague report on Alex's abnormal MRI. He has been confused by the results because the findings are not consistant with her original diagnosis of Larsen's Syndrom. After speaking with the radiologist and geneticist at Arkansas Children's Hospital and considering the part of the brain where the abnormality was found, he is inclined to think the large majority of Alex's symptoms (lack of balanace, low muscle tone, tremors, etc) could be due to a metabolic disorder. His suggestion has been to come back in 6 months for a re-evaluation and to also bring Emma since she suffers from these same symptoms. Drew and I now have to decide whether to sit and wait or to seek another opinion for both of the girls. There are so many metabolic disorders to consider that random testing for them is not practical, but we feel that something needs to be done. Both of the girls have a well child check up with a new pediatrician next Wednesday and more options will be discussed then. We may ask about going to the St. Louis Children's Hospital since there are numerous children that go to therapy with the girls that have been treated for neurology problems there. Please keep them (and Drew and I) in your prayers as we seek answers to the girls' medical problems.

Love, Mandy

Please add them to your prayer list. I appreciate it and so do they.

I'll talk atch ya'll later!
Kitty

Foggy Daze

2007-03-07T10:03:00.000-06:00

Oh goodness...I feel like I'm in a daze right now. I got plenty of sleep and swam for a bit today but just can't get going for some reason!!! Ugh!

Comense with the caffeine!

Ok, so last weekend was wonderful. Jason came down for a visit and it was great. Did a lot of errands and went to see the movie Wild Hogs which I thought was very funny. Later that evening we went out to dinner with a couple of friends and had a real good time. Sunday came too fast and Jason had to hop skip and jump back to OKC. By that afternoon I was feeling pretty lousy because 1) my sweetie had to leave and 2) I wasn't feeling very good.

The sickness got worse with a scratchy throat and congestion and I could tell I was not going to be in the mood to get up early for work. So I txted MB to tell her I was going to be late. I stayed up late Sunday night writing invitations to Angie's bridal shower. Oh man, my fingers ached!! I watched Quigley Down Under to give me something to listen to. I love that movie. I also printed out envelopes on the computer which went by very fast and then drugged myself and went to bed at 12:30.

The next morning was not so good. I couldn't breath at all!! Um, yeah, I didn't go to work. However, I really didn't stay home to rest either. I ran around town for a little bit to do some shower stuff and felt better. I think it was stressing me out and I didn't realize it. I'm not a great delegator and tend to try to do everything on my own. But thankfully I passed on some of the responsibility of the shower to three other ladies. Thank you!!! My eye stopped twitching. I can tell I'm stressed when my left eyelid starts to involuntarily twitch. It's wierd but a good indicator.

I also rented the movie Babel and it was good. Then I had a PEO officer's meeting at 4:30 and got that over with and since I was out again I called Angie to get her professional opinion about a dress I had spied. I don't have many dresses. I'm not sure why but I usually wear pants. But recently I have felt like dressing up or just needed a change. I looked at my clothes and realized that most of what I own I've owned for two years or more. I need a clothes overhaul!! This leads me to a thought that has been rumbling in my head for the past several days. It's very shallow but still could be thought provoking to some: Why do women love shoes? I love them! They're so cute. Do I have a lot of shoes? Compared to who? I think I'm probably average. Most of them are practical but a few are dressy. I still don't know why I like them. It could become a nasty addiction but thankfully I don't have a lot of money. But that never stopped Carrie from Sex and the City from buying a $400 pair of shoes. Yikes!! Anywho...if anyone can enlighten me on my question, please let me know.

I better get back to work...the annual Dr Pepper Collector's Convention is upon us and the museum has to get ready for it!! AAAHHHH!!! Let the madness begin!

"Later," she says, while blowing her nose.

Padre Visit

2007-02-26T10:56:00.001-06:00

This weekend was cool. My Dad got to come down for a visit. We watched movies and ran around town looking at my museum, the zoo, the dam and trying to keep the dust out of our hair...yeah right! Not with 60mph wind gusts!! We also went to Home Depot to see if Dad's first cousin was there and he was!! I almost forgot he lived here. It was good to see him and I know we shocked him. The look he gave was classic!

It was a good visit and just made me miss my family more. What are you gonna do? Go see them, of course! When? I don't know...that's the bad thing. I will eventually. I usually do.

Later taters, gotta go do some work.

No Subject

2007-02-22T09:47:00.000-06:00

Well I wanted to blog about something but I forgot what it was about, so I'll just update you on my life.

1) Last weekend I had the privilege of spending time with Jason's sister, Ruth and her husband, Cliff, her two boys, Devon and Bryce-man, and Cliff's niece, Jesse. We went up to Dallas to watch Medieval Times Friday night. It was awesome. I hadn't been in 12 years. I think I was more excited than the kids. We rooted for the yellow knight and we had the loudest cheering section due to the fact that the National Championship Junior High Cheerleaders were there. "Spirit Fingers!!!" The next day we roamed the Bass Pro Shop, lost a kid, found the kid and then went to Grapevine Mills Mall and ate at the Rainforest Cafe. That was cool. Never been there before. If I see another volcano with a sparkler...

2) My friends Lewis and Heather are engaged and getting married fairly soon. Congrats to them. Found that out Sunday!! Yay! It's a year for weddings...let me tell you...

3) Extremely busy at the Dr Pepper Museum. I got to crawl in between the first and second floor of the museum stringing a data cable from the router to our office. That was fun. We're also gearing up for two major events. The 10-2-4 Club Covention. It's when Dr Pepper Collectors gather together for a good time swaping, selling and showing off their collection. The museum participates heavily. This year I will be shooting my first movie for our convention seminar. It will be interesting... The second major thing we are gearing up for is the move of the museum's collections to another building. I can't wait to drive the forklift...watch out people!!!

4) My Dad is coming in to town this weekend. It is a last minute thing and I'm glad. I miss my family.

5) 27 days until I find out my test scores, so I can begin the next phase of my teacher certification... I hate waiting.

Check out the pictures from last weekend:

The Crew

The Lords and Ladies

The Convocation

The Procession

The Yellow Knight

At the Bass Pro Shop

Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T10:02:00.000-06:00

Well here it is. I can officially say I've been on both sides of the coin so to speak. What I mean is that I've hated this day and I've loved this day. I remember getting this funny balloon in the shape of a heart with arms and legs and it would hover over the ground looking like it was standing up. That was from my dad. Cute!! I also loved Val's Day because in elementary school we made boxes to put Valentines in. Gosh I loved that!!! (I'm a dork!) In the past I've hated this day because I had not been the recipient of valentines from a boyfriend because I didn't have one, and of course that upset me and actually made me bitter! Ugh!! I eventually moved past that and became neutral. It was just another day. You realize you can and should show someone you love them any day of the year, not just Valentine's Day? Anyhoo... Honestly, this year I wasn't sure what to expect. I have learned that expectations can be good and bad. You certainly should have expectations of your friends and loved ones but not overly exaggerated to the point that if you don't get what you want, you'd be disappointed every single time. I would say I have done this on more than one occasion with disastrous results. Then I was miserable and felt sorry for myself. So all that to say is that I'm learning how to balance what I need to expect and what I want to expect. I hope this all makes sense. Hey! It does to me! So with that being said I will tell you about my Valentine. He's handsome and sweet and he did the wonderfullest thing for me! I drove up last Friday to OKC and met Jason at the high school because he was announcing the varsity basketball games. I got there just before the girls halftime. During halftime Jason and I met up the first thing out of his mouth wasn't Hi!, How was your trip? or even a hug!! He gave me his keys and said I needed to bring him a piece of paper from the front of his car. Ok. And of course I would do it, but I'm thinking to myself, why can't he do it? Well I'm walking out to his car and even before I get to the door I can see the beautiful bouquet of roses (see pictures) in the front seat and I drop his keys because I was so surprised. I really was floored. By the time I get back to the stands...I have a huge grin on my face and so does he. He did a good job and I love him for it. I, on the other hand, gave him a Jeff Gordon chocolate car. It's his favorite driver in NASCAR and they keep making cute stuff with his logo on it. I also sent him a card in the mail and I hope it gets there today!!

So the moral of the story is that everyday is special and if you have friends, family and special loved ones, tell them how you feel and not just on Valentine's Day.

Do you know the history behind Valentine's Day? Follow the link to the History Channel. Also check out these interesting facts on the economics of today.

Wandering...

2007-02-08T08:37:00.000-06:00

So I was driving along a flat stretch of Interstate when to my left I saw a huge oil refinery. It was dusk so its lights were on and it looked like a small city. To my right I saw a state trooper out of his car aiming a speed radar at the cars going past, so of course I slowed down. Not two seconds later I was walking down the empty streets toward yet another oil refinery just right of the other one. I thought that was odd for some reason. Why are there two oil refineries so close together? Then all of a sudden I hear the Pink Floyd song "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" playing in my ear. Well that's interesting...oh yeah! Wake up!!! Yes, I was asleep while dreaming something very weird and then Jason called me (he has the Pink Floyd ringtone). It wasn't late, in fact I was asleep around 8:30 due to a HUGE headache, maybe even a migraine. I don't know. So Jason talked awhile and then I couldn't go back to sleep just yet, so I read a little. I'm reading Treasure of Khan by Clive Cussler. Pretty good so far, and I like it even better because there's a character in it from Arkansas who has a Razorback hat. Go figure...HAH!

Nothing much else going on...it seems forever ago that Christmas and the New Year was here. The months seem to be zooming by. I went up to OKC to take my first two competency exams to become certified as a teacher at the secondary level in social studies. It won't be until next month that I find out if I passed or not. The first test was pretty easy but long (OK General Education Test). The second was World History/Geography test. A little more difficult...

I, of course, saw Jason while I was there and it was nice because I hadn't seen him in five weeks!! I don't think I could do that again.

Now I'm just playing a waiting game. Waiting on test scores, waiting on construction at the museum to finish so we can move collections, waiting on job opportunities (museum and teaching), waiting on whatever...I'm tired of waiting.

I've been really busy with getting ready for the move. Crunching numbers for moving expenses, setting up a time line for the next several months, counting shelving units, deciding where everything is going to go...it's been pretty hectic and my apartment has suffered because of it. I'm doing a little bit here and there for cleaning up but it's slow going. My brain doesn't want to think about anything when I get home.

Random thoughts:

I watched a movie the other night called Beowulf and Grendel. It was pretty good actually.
Found a quote from a 1921 annual from Waco High that I love: "It was his chiefest ambition to graduate in knickerbockers." I don't know if he did but sure is funny imagining it.
I've been listening to country music in the evenings lately (while putting together a puzzle) and I like it for the most part. There are some tearjerkers to say the least and ones that I weren't expecting to be either...they're pretty sly. Last night I heard one called "Drugs or Jesus" by Tim McGraw. Good.
The weather. I wish it would just gradually go from cold to slightly warm consistently.

Anywho...that's all I know for right now....I'll write something later.

The Suffering

2007-01-16T09:54:00.000-06:00

No, not the Coheed & Cambria song, which is really good, btw. I'm referring to the suffering that everyone must go through. People must suffer...it's part of life and life is also about how you deal with suffering. You can deal, I think, in two different ways: medicate (cover up your suffering any number of ways, not just medication) or by opening up your self to the pain and share it with others so they can help you through it. I think people think the goal in life is to be happy. I think that's part of it but not the essential part. We worry about finances, our hair, our makeup, who's Cameron Diaz going to be with now that she and Justin are broken up. These are superficial things that the world wants us to pay attention to and not the things that are really important, like our souls. In the end, does it matter what we looked like when we died or what people said about our character. I'm not saying it's wrong to wear makeup and try and look our best. I actually think it's important to take care of ourselves and look our best but not to the extreme that society pressures us into...I don't know if it's the same for guys as it is for girls, so I'm just writing from the female perspective here.

So back to the soul? How's yours? Are you suffering so deep but still wear a smile on your face? Why do we think we have to hide our pain? We should share it but that is a very uncomfortable thing to do. But talking about it can relieve so much of the burden, it's really unbelievable. But then you have to deal with your pain. Are you going to let it drown you or are you going to let it shape you to be a better person? It's really up to you and if you have a higher power, aka your faith, God, you have that strength to draw on. Don't be afraid to have a little help from your friends...that's what we're here for.

You may be wondering to yourself...why is she being so introspective? Well, this week is revival at our church...I'm not into the big revival thing, but at the last minute I decided to go last night. I'm glad I did, it just reinforced what I have learned, sorta jump started me a little about communication and hurting. And just because I wrote about relying on your friends and being able to communicate pain/suffering to them doesn't mean I'm the best at it. Far from it...I'm not very good at it...at all...but at least I know it and want to do better...but I don't get credit for knowing and wanting, I actually have to practice it. I probably won't do it on my blog, but rather in person or over the phone...so GET READY!!! LOL...no just kidding, but don't be surprised if I do.

-Kitty

Hi, My name is Jessica and I'm addicted to....

2007-01-16T09:10:00.000-06:00

...Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. Yes, I'm a dork, but I like it. This past weekend I was a homebody and, well, stayed home and really didn't come out. I've been borrowing the Buffy series from a co-worker and I'm almost done with season six. By watching this series I have affirmed and reconfirmed that I am a total NERD!!!! First, if I was a character on Buffy, I would totally be Willow in a non-witch, non-lesbian way. She is shy and very studious and color codes her notes...which I have done in the past.... Just paint a big N on my forehead. THEN to make it worse was the fact the villains, three dorky guys, make references to Star Wars and Star Trek and I caught every single reference. Nerd factor just went up 3 points... So basically all I did this weekend was try to keep warm, watch Buffy and pick up a knitting project I started eleven years ago...that's right knitting... Didn't know I could do that did ya!?! I can crotchet too. Ahh the skills I have.

Keep warm, folks and pray for those who don't have power....

-Kitty

Christmas blues and the beginning...

2007-01-02T15:55:00.000-06:00

...of a new year, of course. I mention the Christmas blues because the anticipation of the day and then the day is HERE and then the day after is very anti-climatic. Except when you have family spread out and you just go house to house and the giving and receiving keeps on going! YAY! Anyway, as usual Christmas was disjointed and dramatic (always is when you have dysfunctional families). No more than usual. Even better, in some ways.

Christmas started with the packing of the suitcase(s). It was a little different this year since I was flying home from DFW because I met my Mom who had surgery the Wednesday before I met her and was flying back from New Orleans so I flew the rest of the way home with her and helped her out around the house for a few days. (Longest sentence ever!) SO I had to whip out the largest suitcase for presents and the essentials but still didn't have enough room for my shirts/sweaters so I packed those as a carry-on for the plane. Oh yeah. Our flight was delayed for about 2.5 hours. But when we finally arrived home, the brother and Jason were there waiting for us. That was nice.

Watched a lot of TV, took part in the the Bond-a-thon that is always on, cooked my first turkey (turned out pretty good, if you ask me), ate lunch with Dad and actually had Christmas with everybody on Christmas eve. Jason stayed as long as he could and participated in the "cornucopia of greed" (reference to the ever famous "A Christmas Story"). He gave me a BEAUTIFUL ring with three rubies in the shape of hearts, the middle ruby being a little bigger than the other two. *sigh* Thanks, sweetie! He then left for OK to be with his family.a Patrick acquired a beautiful Siberian Husky whom he calls Beowulf. Apt name. Smart dog. He keeps finding new ways to get out of the back yard, including jumping through the screened in back porch. Eeeeppp!!!

After Christmas in AR, I flew back to DFW and drove up to Comanche, OK. But first I had some car problems, like it being totally dead. I vaguely remember turning on the overhead light to look for something in my purse before I got out. The service to jump my car was most excellent, super friendly and super fast. I only had to wait 10 minutes. What took so long after that was the toll operator trying to figure out how to discount me for the parking space (I got to park in the terminal parking lot for the same price as express parking). Yippee! Then by total accident I took the wrong exit and started heading in the wrong direction for OK. I had to backtrack a couple of miles. No bigee. I did finally make it to Comanche where I was greeted warmly by Jason's family and attacked by his nephews!! The gifts kept on coming and was surprised by a beautiful leather jacket from his parents. Nice. The next day Jason and I drove up to OKC and just vegged pretty much and ran a few errands. Got to see Jennifer (finally!) while I was there and checked out her new digs and went to see Eragon. A little cheesy but I liked it.

Also went to a New Year's Eve party and had quite a bit of fun. Learned how to play The Great Delmutie. Very fun! Stayed up late jabbering and just having a good time! I enjoyed it a lot AND it was cold outside. Anywhoos, you probably didn't want to know all that but there ya go.

I don't do resolutions. Why do them at the beginning of the year when you can make a resolution when you think of them? BUT I read a blog this morning that should be read by all so I'm gonna link it HERE. It's about your happiness.

First Turkey cooked by moui!

Purty ring I got!

It was a redneck Christmas, fo sho!

Alex and her new baby.

Emma in her cute outfit.

Beowulf on top of his dog house!

Christmas Carols

2006-12-13T08:32:00.000-06:00

Even though I ranted about the commercialization of Christmas, I do love it. Some aspects at least. I love going to church to sing Christmas carols. There is just something inspiring and humbling to hear songs about the birth of Jesus sung by hundreds of voices that can utterly make me speechless ergo emotional. Every year I have a "favorite" carol. It's hard to pick from. I think this year is Carol of the Bells. Lots of different versions can be found and I like them all from the classical to the Mannheim Steamroller version. Doesn't Trans-Siberian Orchestra have a cool rock version of it? Anyway, that's my Christmas story of the day. Heh Heh, A Christmas Story...now that's one of my favorite Christmas movies. But that's a story for another day...

Moviepalooza

2006-12-12T09:45:00.001-06:00

Well the weekend proved to be a regular weekend with some entertainment. Friday afternoon I skipped out of work early because I had to work on Saturday so I went to the matinee showing of Apocalypto. Pretty good, pretty gory and violent. Thought provoking if you let it be. Did some final purchasing of odd n ends for Christmas and bought some groceries too. Saturday I worked and then went home for a nap and then went to the dollar twenty-five theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. It was good, again. Next I went for a walk on the treadmill at the YMCA starting about 6:30pm and realized ESPN was showing the Heisman trophy winner at 7pm and thought I would just walk until they announced the winner. But I realized they weren't going to come out and say it until the end so I went home and watched some Buffy. The ONLY reason I even considered watching the Heisman thing is because Darren McFadden (a Razorback) was nominated and in the top three. Well it didn't matter anyway, he lost. Maybe next year!!!

Sunday went to church, went to lunch, went to nap and then went to see The Holiday with Mary Beth and Jennie and then to eat dinner. It was a cute movie but totally unrealistic. It was very chick flick. The only possible way for any of that to happen is to have tons of money and fortunately for the people in the movie, they did.

I did a little cleaning but vegged in between everything else.

Looking forward this weekend! I finally get to see my sweetie! It seems so long ago that Thanksgiving ocurred. Well that's about it...for now.

Later taters.

Brrrrr.....I like it!!!

2006-12-04T12:28:00.000-06:00

Ok, so my last blog was a complaint and I ain't complaining any mo! It DEFINITELY feels like Christmas FINALLY! There's even been some ice which was a nice touch, especially down here in Texas. This weekend was slightly uneventful but was nice. Did some grocery shopping, Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating and gift wrapping. I'm officially done with Christmas gifts. It's a miracle for a procrastinating girl like moui. Well, to be honest, most of my shopping I did in July in China.

Other things I did: Picked out recipes for the annual baking frenzy I do for family, friends and coworkers. I bought a fire log and preceeded to burn it without checking to make sure the flew was open. It wasn't. So I had smoke and my annoying fire alarm go off. I aired out the apt. and took the battery out of the alarm. All good. Went out with Anita and watched the downtown Christams parade at night. That was fun. Kids going crazy and grabbing for the candy. Cute...there were about five Santas. It confused me, I can only imagine the other kids were confused too.

Before we left to go to the parade, though, I noticed my left rear passenger tire was low, but I forgot about it until after church the next morning. By that time it was REALLY low! I slowly made it to a gas station and saw that it was $.50 for air. FIFTY CENTS FOR AIR!!! I remember a time when you could get it for free. Well I didn't think I had any cash on me so, great, I was going to have to buy a soda to get cash back. But thankfully when I was getting my air pressure gauge I found...wait for it....exactly fifty cents. Praise be! So I aired up that tire and checked the front driver tire and it was slightly low so I aired that one up as well. The other two were just fine. Similar thing happened to Jason last week. I think it's the weather. I hope it's the weather and not a nail in the tire. Eeeek!!! I've been monitoring it and it seems to be ok, for now.

Saturday evening I watched the Razorbacks lose. WHHHAAAA!!! Sigh. Maybe next year. But Florida was tough and I don't think we were doing our best. So I switched back and forth between the Hogs and the Sooners. At least they won. But I'm not sure which bowl game the Hogs got...let me check...CAPITOL ONE BOWL? It doesn't sound very presitgous but at least we got one. Oklahoma is in the Fiesta Bowl...at least that one sounds...festive.

I also watched that all time Christmas classic: Ace Venture Pet Detective. Yeah, that's what you get when you don't have cable.

That about wraps up my weekend. In the Christmas spirit, enjoying the weather, missing my sweetie (big time), and preparing for all the Christmas baking in the next coupld of weeks. YAY!!!

It's not beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2006-11-28T20:44:00.000-06:00

Ugh!!! This is just a complaint that it is way too hot for Christams... It's November for goodness sake!!!! It's not supposed to be freakin' 80 degrees!!!

Ok...I'm better...it will be a-ok.

Thanksgiving Week/end

2006-11-27T18:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving people. Are you turkeyed out yet? I'm not. I didn't get any turkey sandwiches, but that's my fault.

ANYWHO!!!

I had a wonderful week/end spending time with family. Let's just start on Wednesday: My plan was to leave work at 12:30pm and arrive at Jason's parents at 5pm. Well that didn't work. There must have been a huge wreck about 50 miles north of Waco because cars crawled at no speed - snail pace for about 2 hours and we barely got 3 miles. THAT was fun. But I made it in one piece to McAlester, OK. Funny that Jason and his Dad got stuck in traffic going to pick up deer meat. Hee hee... Had a relaxing Thanksgiving Day with Jason's parents and his sister Ruth and Cliff (her husband). I think I've watched enough football to last me for about two years now.

I drove us to Fayetteville on Friday and had no problems getting there. Baked a pie and waited until the bro, sis-in-law and nieces came over. Fun times! Turkey...goood! Arkansas losing to LSU....BAD!!! We'll survive...somehow... Saturday was a lazy day...it was great. Showed Mom what I wanted for Christmas and went over to Drew and Mandy's for hamburgers with Dad and Grandma. Good to see them. Drew took me for a spin in his new Mustang...laid some rubber on the road too.

Now the trip back to Waco wasn't all that bad because I had the fore thought to pick some alternate routes that saved me some time. Except for the wreck that held up traffic outside of Waco. Fortunately I was at a place where I knew some back roads to get to the apartment. Yeah! I got home about 7pm. All in all the trip was excellent...now I can't wait for Christmas. I'm thinking of taking a whole week off, which will be really nice. I got to get crackin' Christmas is around the corner!!! Which leads me to a dilemma. Should I get the tree out and decorate or no b/c no one but me will see it? It's always a quandary. Below are a few pics of the fam:

Ok, this isn't of the family.
I took a picture of the grass waving in the wind while I was stuck on N-I35E.

Jason's Dad carving the turkey!

Awww...Jason and Emma

Alex and Drew

Princess Alex

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday!!!

2006-11-22T08:39:00.000-06:00

Don't get me wrong, Christmas is very important too. But the commercialization of Christmas has gotten out of control. I love Christmas music but for goodness sakes, don't start playing it until AFTER Thanksgiving, please! I confess I have listened to a little bit but after hearing the same song three times in one day, that's when I gotta listen to the iPod! Anyway, I wonder what people in other countries think Chirstmas is supposed to be when they observe us. I can't imagine! This is how I see it. Instead of the birth of Chirst being the center of the season, it seems to be Santa Claus, reindeer and how many lights you can put on your house. It looks like we worship the wrong gift giver. Santa Claus. Based on a true person, giving gifts to the poor? Maybe, and honorable but it seems we are on the wrong side of the worshipping. We beg and plead to get what we want, especially when we're kids. Do you realize we live in a society today that we can get what we want whenever we want it? Several decades ago it wasn't like that. It was all people could do to save enough to buy something special at Christmas. I love to give gifts. It's fun. I like to receive gifts but not half as much as giving. Seriously!! In reality this is the time to be thankful again to God who gave us the ultimate gift of redemption through his own son. I think that's why we are supposed to give gifts to one another. Almost like a mini sacrifice of money for family, friends and those less fortunate than ourselves.

WOW what a tirade!!! and I haven't even got to Thanksgiving yet!

Why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday....by Jessica Harris; Grade ?

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because the air is cooler and the leaves turn different colors (alas, not so much in Texas). It's a time to gather with your family and just be with them. Food is always involved and I like to cook too, so that's a bonus. It just gives me an excuse. I love leftover turkey. I also love to lay on the couch and snooze or watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Not all of it because it's too long...just another excuse to snooze on the couch. Granted some of the time I help with the meal, but that really should be left to the matriarch of family, shouldn't it? At my house, it's tradition to go see a movie on Thanksgiving day and if there's enough of us, we play Trivial Pursuit (guys against girls). Anyway, I love that Thanksgiving is a time where we can be thankful with out all of the hullabaloo during Christmas. That's probably what I like best. The end.

Ya'll, be thankful for what you have and don't take it for granted! Ever! We don't know how lucky we truly are.

God bless...

PS: I'm also thankful that FOX has decided to cancel the TV Special with OJ Simpson!!! Thank GOODNESS!!!

Stupid, stupid, stupid....

2006-11-17T09:52:00.001-06:00

Ok there are two things I just HAD to blog about...

1) OJ Simpson.

I just had to have a moment of silence for the stupidity of this man. I might sound harsh (for me) but give me break. How stupid IS this guy? Honestly, have you heard the latest? Yeah, he's gonna be on TV to discuss the latest. Here's a quote from CNN, just because I can't bring myself to write down:

Fox, which plans to air an interview with Simpson Nov. 27 and 29, said Simpson describes how he would have committed the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, "if he were the one responsible."

There aren't any words to describe the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Fox must really hard up for things to air AND/OR OJ must be feeling pretty lonely to get this kind of attention. My Dad said he thought OJ couldn't profit off his ex-wife's death according to the court ruling. So I'm wondering about OJ's motivation. Bored? All I can say is.....DEE DEE DEEEEEEE!

The other sad thing about this is that a lot of people are going to watch this and buy the stupid book... BOYCOTT IT!!!! Why are we so fascinated with this crap?

2)Playstation 3.

No, I wasn't in line. Did you hear some teenagers held up a line of people who were waiting to purchase the PS3 and shot someone who refused to give them money? I know people do very strange/stupid things, but I'm sorry, when did a game box become so important that you need to rob and shoot someone to buy it (I'm assuming that's what they were going to do). Why does it cost so much freakin' money? Ok, it's the latest in graphic technology....yada yada yada. But don't we better things to spend our money on than something that can cause us to ignore the world around us? I can say this because I've been caught up in the gaming world. I've spent hours and hours on Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (love that game) and computer games when I could have been doing so much other productive stuff, like, I don't know, cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, being outside, getting an education...

Watch the episode of South Park where Warcraft is the storyline. I think it's a pretty accurate picture of what part of our society is coming to. Just to further convince you we are going the way of the Dodo bird, here are a few more articles on the wonderful actions of crazy people after a game box:

Launch-Day Frenzy

Customer shot while waiting outside a Connecticut Walmart. (Article - ABCNews.com)

Three PS3 campers robbed at gunpoint outside Springfield, OR Circuit City. (Article - KMTR.com, Oregon)

Two gunmen rob a GameStop store in Elk Grove, CA, steal several PS3's. (Article - CBS13.com, Sacramento, CA)

Several customers shot with BB guns while waiting outside a Central Kentucky Best Buy. (Article - WKYT.com, Kentucky)

A dentist in Columbus, GA hired 60 temp workers to wait inline for 15 systems for his grandchildren. He later ditches plan after complaints from other customers. (Article - ledger-enquirer.com)

One customer quits job to wait in line. Another postpones buying engagement ring for his girlfriend in order to afford PS3. (Article - TGDaily.com)

Pregnant mother ignores contractions while camping outside a Secaucus, NJ Best Buy. (Article - NJ.com)

Various Stories (Article - Newsday.com)

P.S. on the Razorback Game...

2006-11-15T13:46:00.000-06:00

Top Five Tips while attending a Razorback Football Game:

Check the weather, it could be cold.

Sub tip - wear warm clothes when cold

If you do get a chance to sit down, bring something to sit on.
Check the best possible and easy accessible parking spots (and alternate routes to get to them).
Leave in plenty of time...you never know how long it will take you to climb the ramp to get to your seats in the nose bleed section.
MOST IMPORTANT TIP: Try not to wear the opposing team's colors...you could get your head smashed in...when in doubt...wear red.

These tips are brought to you by people who have experienced the weather, sitting arrangements, parking, climbing and wearing of inappropriate colors. (Jason was most unfortunate to have in his possession a Norman Tigers coat, which happens to be orange, which happened to be the color of the Tennessee Vols, who we happened to be playing at the time.)

How 'bout them HOGS!!!!!

2006-11-14T08:33:00.000-06:00

Well what can I say...I think they won because we were screaming at the top of our lungs. Yup, my sibilings and their significant others, as well as my own, all went with two other cousins to the Arkansas (ranked #7) vs. Tennessee (ranked #22) game last Saturday. It was awesome! Maybe not the fact that we were probably 5 rows from the very top of the stadium and way on the end, but hey, you can't really quibble with free tickets to a huge game! We were fortunate enough to get a decent parking space. Thanks to the Daggets.

It was a short but excellent trip. Jason and I met in Indianola at Jason's parents and spent the night before going to Fayetteville on Saturday. I got to see where Jason grew up and went to school. Very cool. We dropped by Dad's and said hey and then went on to Mom's where Aunt Becky and Robin were showing off their shopping purchases. Got to see the brother, which was great.

It was really fun to be there with the bros and Mandy and Alex. I think we all had a good time. It's been fun being adults talking and joking around. I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. I have a wonderful family and there just isn't enough time in the day to visit as long as I would like without going insane. I'm also looking forward to spending time with Jason's family too.

OHHH!!! Jason called me early yesterday morning letting me know he was in a car accident. Not his fault but did do some damage to his car. He's ok, a little sore, but sad about his baby. Pray that he'll feel better and that everything goes smoothly with his car insurance and getting his car fixed.

Check out the pictures from the game. We rock...HOGS all the way, baby!

"A" is for Arkansas

Go Hogs!!!

J & J

Mandy & Drew

Patrick & Alex

Becky & Robin

The Arkansas Razorback Marching Band!!!

Patrick, Alex, Drew, Mandy, Jason, Jessica, Becky and Robin

NASCAR is.........LOUD!!!!

2006-11-06T12:35:00.000-06:00

Well, I had an eventful weekend. It really was a FUN weekend...I don't know why I'm surprised by it. Everything went well, which I was nervous about. For Jason's birthday, November 1st, I got tickets to see the NASCAR race yesterday....Let me back up a little... I have never been in to stock car racing...ever. There are some sports I will watch, like football and really only when the Razorbacks are playing. And of course, it's always better when you are there live. Now Jason loves sports and NASCAR and I have grown to understand it and actually there is a lot to it. It's also funny because it's like a soap opera...seriously.... You just have to be there and see it to believe it. Boos and cheers. I think people like Dale Earnhardt Jr. because his main sponsor is Bud. (Nah, it's probably because of his Dad.) Anyway! Jeff Gordon is Jason's favorite and I asked him who his second favorite was and he said Tony Stewart. Cool.

The thing I was nervous about was the weather. It was already raining when we got there and then it was sporadic. I bet I looked good in my 86 cent poncho. Woot woot! (By the time the race was over I was pretty much damp and everything I had.) We walked around looking at everything. And then lo and behold there was Ricky Bobby's trailer!!! It was awesome!! I got my picture with a gianormous Ricky Bobby. We found our seats (on the second row on the 1st turn) around 11am and waited. It wasn't too bad because there was so much to see. Dr. Phil was there! We watched the jet engine dryers mounted on trucks drying the track off. We were still wondering if there was even going to be a race. Well it looked like it was a go. The race was delayed about an hour but they did race. It was awesome and very loud. Thank goodness we brought earplugs. There were several wrecks, but the two major ones I missed because I was either 1) in the bathroom, 2) waiting in line at the ATM machine, 3) souveniers or 4) getting a subway sandwich. It's ok, I'll live. :D

Well it was pretty dramatic at the end with a checkered green flag and a restart. Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson were almost neck in neck but Jimmie Johnson couldn't catch Tony Stewart and he won!! It was pretty exciting. There were over 150,000 people there. The population of Waco. That is NUTS!!! The race was over around 7pm and then the heavens opened up and let the water spill out. It thunderstormed like you wouldn't believe. I've heard horror stories about exiting the race but it wasn't too bad really. I took Hwy 156 all the way to I-820 and then to I35W to Ft. Worth. The traffic on the Interstate wasn't bad either. I got home about 9:30pm and was asleep by 10:15. Gosh I was tired. Jason wasn't so lucky. He hit some construction just 12 miles outside of Norman...he didn't get home until 11pm. He texted me and I replied but barely remember it. Poor guy. But hey, he got free tix to something he likes and a pretty darn good blackberry pie, if I do say so myself.

Trying to park the cars at 9am.

One of Tony Stewart's cars.

Me and Ricky Bobby.

Jeff Gordon's car is the one on the right. Neon orange.

Awwww...two NASCAR fans...and earplugs.

Blackberry pie...yeah, I'm pretty proud of it.

Long Time, No Blog...

2006-11-03T13:33:00.000-06:00

Whoa, it seems forever since I've blogged!!! I need to catch ya'll up on stuff! Let's see, what has happened? On the weekend of October 21st I went to Jason's sister's wedding. It was beautiful. She was definitely a princess! The wedding was between Comanche and Duncan on Highway 81. The drive was great. It was nice to see different scenery and drive with no one else on the road. Sweet! I met a lot of Jason's family, including his Grandmother, and a lot of Cliff's family too. Cliff was the groom. All in all, a good time was had by everybody!

So that was the weekend. What else has happened? On 10-24 was our third annual Dr Pepper oUT oF tHE oRDINARY gOLF tOURNAMENT. The turnout was ok but we made basically the same amount of money as last year. We need more players...if you are interested in golfing, our next tournament is on 10-24-07. It's always on 10-24 (weekday permitting). Because, of course, you drink a bite to eat at 10, 2 and 4!

ANYWAY!!! What else...ummmm well my Mom is scheduled to have surgery on November 6th. It's outpatient surgery indirectly related to her cancer treatments. Her next BIG surgery in on December 20th.

Last weekend was fabulous. Friday I took in a matinee. The Prestige. Pretty good! About two magicians duking it out to be the best. On Saturday I got to sleep in for once in a great while. I slept probably until 9 and then read in bed until noon. It was great. Then I went to see the movie The Departed. Pretty good, people! Based on one of my favorite films from Hong Kong, Infernal Affairs. If you get a chance to see it, do so.

Sunday started a week of busyness. Sunday was the Chili/Gumbo cookoff, which we helped set up and take down for...Monday I worked and then represented Cottey College at the HOT College Fair that night....Tuesday night was Fall Festival at Church. (Not Halloween, mind you, but you could still dress up and get candy...what's the logic behind that?) I helped serve pizzas in the concession stand...Wednesday night I represented the country China at church for Mission emphasis week and then helped Angie cook a chicken casserole for a family with an illness. Thursday for lunch I ate at La Fiesta and listened to women talk about their mission experiences. It was good but I'm TIRED!!! So tonight I'm not gonna do much...maybe pick up a few things here and there in the apartment and watch Pride and Prejudice. Gosh, I love that movie.

The next two weekend are going to be action packed, so look for a blog posting next week on NASCAR...yeah, that's right, NASCAR!

Signing off....J

Jessica the Pirate (at work)

Work gang at lunch...on Halloween...duh!
It's not usually how we dress...usually....

Carlos Mencia

2006-10-18T13:18:00.000-05:00

Ok. So I had to write another blog about last night.

A couple of coworkers and friends and I went to see Carlos Mencia last night. If you don't know who he is, you should look him up. He's a comedian who has a potty mouth but is freaking hilarious. There were two other comedians before him who were also very funny. Carlos is Latino and let's just say the Waco Hippodrome hasn't seen such as diverse and young audience in a long time. (My opinion anyway). It was great. I had floor seats and had a great view. We did have an obnoxious guy in the row in front of me who kept on yelling at Carlos...but Carlos used it to his advantage. He even cracked himself up because it was so easy to come up with a come back for him. He kept on saying: "I can't even make this stuff up." There's no way I can even describe what his routine is like except to say that everyone gets ragged on. EVERYONE! including Latinos and mentally slow people. I took some pictures and will put some in my pics space. Take a gander....

Beautiful Weekend

2006-10-16T14:38:00.000-05:00

Yawn!!!! Good grief! Why can't I get enough sleep? Even though I got more than eight hours of sleep last night? It will always be a mystery to me. Oh well.

I glanced at my last blog entry and it looks like I was having a mental break down or something. And I may have had a slight one, but for now, I'm doing pretty ok. Thanks for asking! I'm still sleepy, though. I had a pretty good week last week. It seemed to fly by and go slow at the same time. OOOOHHHH!!!! Mary Beth and I finally got new monitors at work. It's a miracle. Flat screen that weighs about 3lbs whereas my old monitor weighed about 25 (that's no joke, folks). Anyway, I'm amazed when I sit down and am able to see everything on the screen. It's marvelous. Who knew a monitor could be so entertaining. I'm pretty sure it's the White N' Nerdy coming out of me.

So Friday couldn't have gotten here any sooner. It finally did and after work a group of friends and I trekked on over to Meridian State Park to be a part of nature. We had good fajitas thanks to Lewis....thanks Lewis and just a grand ole time in general. I came back that night because Jason was driving down after his football game. He arrived just after 2am. Yawn!! But I got a lot of cleaning done before he got there, so that was good. An aside: I love when I have company over because when they leave, the apartment is generally clean and I don't have to do anything for a couple of days afterward. Yay!

Anyway he arrived and we promptly fell dead asleep. The next day we headed up to Ft. Worth to catch a train into Dallas. It was great! It only cost $4.50 each and that was an all day pass to come back and/or ride the Light Rail or bus system, which we used. The bus took us directly to the Fair. It was very practical and fun. It was hard to find the train terminal though but we found it with 10 minutes to spare. Hmmmm.....sounds like a trip I took in China! Barely making the train!!!! Soooo we got to the fair and listened to some bag pipers. "We've got a piper down!" (said in a Scottish accent). They were very good. We also spent an exorbitant amount of money on food. Everything was good except maybe the fried coke...we were pretty hungry when we got there. We took a look at all the new cars in the Auto show section and I showed Jason the exhibit I helped with on Dr Pepper. There were a ridiculous amount of people, so that took a little away from the experience. We also listened to the Marine Drum & Bugle Corps (not band).

We hopped the train back to Ft. Worth and made it home around 9:30. Tired!

The next day we ate lunch with my friends and watched a little football. About 2 o'clock I received a knock on my door and found the police looking back at me. I swear I didn't do it!!! Actually he was there to tell me that someone had stolen my mail, but couldn't figure out how the perp (yeah, I used the word perp) got into my mailbox. After trying to figure out the details, we finally figured someone went through the dumpster trash and found some unopened junk mail of mine. Usually I tear it up, but obviously this time I didn't. So the moral of the story is: SHRED YOUR MAIL, PEOPLE!!!

So I titled the blog a beautiful weekend because it was. There may have been a few rain drops here and there but it added to the beauty. We need the rain and we need beauty in our lives. There's too much ugly out there.

That's about it for now....still sleepy. Must...wake...up...